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NATURAL LAW 



IN THE 



SPIRITUAL WORLD 



By HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 



K L BURT COMPANY, Publishers 
52-55 Duane Street, New York 






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GIFT 

MAURICE OU PONT LEE 

FEB. 6, 1946 

Property of the 
library of Congress 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 5 

Introduction 35 

Biogenesis 72 

Degeneration 105 

Growth 128 

Death 147 

Mortification 177 

Eternal Life *. 200 

Environment 245 

Conformity to Type 275 

Semi-Parasitism 302 

Parasitism 323 

Classification 347 



PEEFACE. 



No class of works is received with more suspicion, 
I had almost said derision, then those which deal 
with Science and Religion. Science is tired of 
reconciliation between two things which never 
should have been contrasted ; Religion is offended 
by the patronage of an ally which it professes not 
to need ; and the critics have rightly discovered 
that, in most cases where Science is either pitted 
against Religion or fused with it, there is some 
fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope 
and province of either. But although no initial 
protest, probably,, will save this work from the 
unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful 
mind will perceive that the fact of its subject- 
matter being Law — a property peculiar neither to 
Science nor to Religion — at once places it on a 
somewhat different footing. 

The real problem I have set myself may be stated 
in a sentence. Is there not reason to believe that 
many of the Laws of the Spiritual Worjd, hitherto 
regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, 
are simply the Laws of the Natural World ? Can 



6 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

we identify the Natural Laws, or any one of them, 
in the Spiritual sphere ? That vague lines every- 
where run through the Spiritual World is already 
beginning to be recognized. It it possible to link 
them with those great lines running through the 
visible universe which we call the Natural Laws, or 
are they fundamentally distinct ? In a word, Is the 
Supernatural natural or unnatural ? 

I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these 
questions in the form in which they have answered 
themselves to myself. And I must apologize at the 
outset for personal references which, but for the 
clearness they may lend to the statement, I would 
surely avoid. 

It has been my privilege for some years to ad- 
dress regularly two very different audiences on two 
very different themes. On week days I have 
lectured to a class of students on the Natural 
Sciences, and on Sundays to an audience consisting 
for the most part of working men on subjects of a 
moral and religious character. I cannot say that 
this collocation ever appeared as a difficulty to my- 
self, but to certain of my friends it was more than 
a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, 
by what then seemed the necessities of the case — 
I must keep the two departments entirely by them- 
selves. They lay at opposite poles of thought ; and 
for a time I succeeded in keeping the Science and 
the Religion shut off from one another in two 
separate compartments of my mind. But gradually 
the wall of partition showed symptoms of giving 



PREFACE. Y 

way. The two fountains of knowledge also slowly 
began to overflow, and finally their waters met and 
mingled. The great change was in the compartment 
which held the Religion. It was not that the well 
there was dried; still less that the fermenting 
waters were washed away by the flood of Science. 
The actual contents remained the same. But the 
crystals of former doctrine were dissolved ; and 
as they precipitated themselves once more in 
definite forms, I observed that the Crystalline 
System was changed. New channels also for 
outward expression opened, and some of the old 
closed up ; and I found the truth running out 
to my audience on the Sundays by the week- 
day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter 
Religion had taken on the method of expression 
of Science, and I discovered myself enunciating 
Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and 
Physics. 

Now this was not simply a scientific coloring 
given to Religion, the mere freshening of the theo- 
logical air with natural facts and illustrations. It 
was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I came 
seriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or 
seemed to see, that it meant essentially the intro- 
duction of Natural Law into the Spiritual World. 
It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies 
of Phenomena rose into view — although material for 
Parable lies unnoticed and unused on the field of 
recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But 
Law has a still grander function to discharge towards 



8 NATURAL LAW IN TEE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Religion than Parable. There is a deeper unity 
between the two Kingdoms than the analogy of 
their Phenomena — a unity which the poet's vision, 
more quick than the theologian's, has already dimly 
seen : — 

" And verily many thinkers of this age, 
Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, 
Are wrong in just my sense, who understood 
Our natural world too insularly, as if 
No spiritual counterpart completed it, 
Consummating its meaning, rounding all 
To justice and perfection, line by line, 
Form by form, nothing single nor alone, 
The great below clenched by the great above." * 

The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit 
" form by form." Law undertakes the profounder 
task of comparing "line by line." Thus Natural 
Phenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in 
Religion. Natural Law, on the other hand, could it 
be traced in the Spiritual World, would have an 
important scientific value — it would offer Religion 
a new credential. The effect of the introduction of 
Law among the scattered Phenomena of Nature has 
simply been to make Science, to transform knowledge 
into eternal truth. The same crystallizing touch is 
needed in Religion. Can it be said that the Phe- 
nomena of the Spiritual World are other than scat- 
tered? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the 
religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? 
And when we regard the uncertainty of current 

* Aurora Leigh. 



PREFACE. 9 

beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of inevitable as 
well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of 
early faith by those who would cherish it longer if 
they could, is it not plain that the one thing thinking 
men are waiting for is the introduction of Law 
among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? 
"When that comes we shall offer to such men a truly 
scientific theology. And the Reign of Law will 
transform the whole Spiritual World as it has already 
transformed the Natural World. 

I confess that even when in the first dim vision 
the organizing hand of Law moved among" the un- 
ordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor and 
scantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come 
over it the beauty of a transfiguration. The change 
was as great as from the old chaotic world of 
Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious 
universe of Newton. My Spiritual World before 
was a chaos of facts ; my Theology, a Pythagorean 
system trying to make the best of Phenomena apart 
from the idea of Law. I make no charge against 
Theology in general. I speak of my own. And I 
say that I saw it to be in many essential respects 
centuries behind every department of Science I 
knew. It was the one region still unpossessed by 
Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust 
Theology ; why those who have learned to look 
upon Law as Authority grow cold to it— it was the 
Great Exception. 

I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my 
own mind partly for another reason— to show its 



1) NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

naturalness. Certainly I never premeditated any- 
thing to myself so objectionable and so unwarrant- 
able in itself, as either to read Theology into 
Science or Science into Theology. Nothing could 
be more artificial than to attempt this on the 
speculative side ; and it has been a substantial 
relief to me throughout that the idea rose up thus 
in the course of practical work and shaped itself 
day by day unconsciously. It might be charged, 
nevertheless, that I was all the time, whether 
consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my 
Theology into my Science. And as this would 
hopelessly vitiate the conclusions arrived at, I must 
acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothing 
have I been more fearful throughout than of making 
Nature parallel with my own or with any creed. 
The only legitimate questions one dare put to 
Nature are those which concern universal human 
good and the Divine interpretation of things. These 
I conceive may be there actually studied at first- 
hand, and before their purity is soiled by human 
touch. We have Truth in Nature as it came from 
God. And it has to be read with the same un- 
biassed mind, the same open eye, the same faith, 
and the same reverence as all other Revelation. 
All that is found there, whatever its place in Theol- 
ogy, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, what- 
ever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to 
accept as Doctrine from which on the lines of 
Science there is no escape. 
When this presented itself to me as a method, I 



PREFACE. 11 

felt it to be due to it — were it only to secure, so far 
as that was possible, that no former bias should inter- 
fere with the integrity of the results — to begin again 
at the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World 
step by step. The result of that inquiry, so far as its 
expression in systematic form is concerned, I have 
not given in this book. To reconstruct a Spiritual 
Religion, or a department of Spiritual Religion — for 
this is all the method can pretend to — on the lines of 
Nature would be an attempt from which one better 
equipped in both directions might well be pardoned 
if he shrank. My object at present is the humbler 
one of venturing a simple contribution to practical 
Religion along the lines indicated. What Bacon pre- 
dicates of the Natural World, Natura enim non nisi 
parendo vincitur, is also true, as Christ had already 
told us, of the Spiritual World. And I present a few 
samples of the religious teaching referred to formerly 
as having been prepared under the influence of scien- 
tific ideas in the hope that they may be useful first of 
all in this direction. 

I would, however, carefully point out that though 
their unsystematic arrangement here may create the 
impression that these papers are merely isolated 
readings in Religion pointed by casual scientific 
truths, they are organically connected by a single 
principle. Nothing could be more false both to 
Science and to Religion than attempts to adjust the 
two spheres by making out ingenious points of con- 
tact in detail. Th# solution of this great question of 
conciliation, if one may still refer to a problem so 



12 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

gratuitous, must be general rather than particular. 
The basis in a common principle — the Continuity of 
Law — can alone save specific applications from rank- 
ing as mere coincidences, or exempt them from the 
reproach of being a hybrid between two things 
which must be related by the deepest affinities or 
remain forever separate. 

To the objection that even a basis in Law is no 
warrant for so great a trespass as the intrusion into 
another field of thought of the principles of Natural 
Science, I would reply that in this I find I am 
following a lead which in other departments has not 
only been allowed but has achieved results as rich as 
they were unexpected. "What is the Physical Politic 
of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Natural 
Law to the Political World ? What is the Biological 
Sociology of Mr. Herbert Spencer, but the applica- 
tion of Natural Law to the Social World? Will it 
be charged that the splendid achievements of such 
thinkers are hybrids between things which Nature 
has meant to remain apart ? Nature usually solves 
such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism 
is checked by the Law of Sterility. Judged by this 
great Law, these modern developments of our knowl- 
edge stand uncondemned. Within their own sphere 
the results of Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from 
sterile — the application of Biology to Political Econ- 
omy is already revolutionizing the Science. If the 
introduction of Natural Law into the Social sphere 
is no violent contradiction, but a e genuine and perma- 
nent contribution, shall its further extension to the 



PREFACE. 13 

Spiritual sphere be counted an extra vagence ? Does 
not the principle of Continuity demand its applica- 
tion in every direction? To carry it as a working 
principle into so lofty a region may appear imprac- 
ticable. Difficulties lie on the threshold which may 
seem, at first sight, insurmountable. But obstacles to 
a true method only test its validity. And he who 
honestly faces the task may find relief in feeling that 
whatever else of crudeness and imperfection mar it, 
the attempt is at least in harmony with the thought 
and movement of his time. 

That these papers were not designed to appear in 
a collective form, or indeed to court the more public 
light at all, needs no disclosure. They are published 
out of regard to the wish of known and unknown 
friends by whom, when in a fugitive form, they were 
received with so curious an interest as to make one 
feel already that there are minds which such forms of 
truth may touch. In making the present selection, 
partly from manuscript, and partly from articles 
already published, I have been guided less by the 
wish to constitute the papers a connected series than 
to exhibit the application of the principle in various 
directions. They will be found, therefore, of unequal 
interest and value, according to the standpoint from 
which they are regarded. Thus some are designed 
with a directly practical and popular bearing, others 
being more expository, and slightly apologetic in 
tone. The risk of combining two objects so very 
different is somewhat serious. But, for the reason 
named, having taken this responsibility, the only 



14: NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

compensation I can offer is to indicate which of the 
papers incline to the one side or to the other. " De- 
generation," " Growth," " Mortification," " Conform- 
ity to Type," " Semi-Parasitism," and " Parasitism " 
belong to the more practical order ; and while one or 
two are intermediate, " Biogenesis," " Death," and 
" Eternal Life " may be offered to those who find the 
atmosphere of the former uncongenial. It will not 
disguise itself, however, that, owing to the circum- 
stances in which they were prepared, all the papers 
are more or less practical in their aim ; so that to 
the merely philosophical reader there is little to be 
offered except — and that only with the greatest 
diffidence — the Introductory chapter. 

In the Introduction, which the general reader may 
do well to ignore, I have briefly stated the case for 
Natural Law in the Spiritual World. The extension 
of Analogy to Laws, or rather the extension of the 
Laws themselves, so far as known to me, is new ; and 
I cannot hope to have escaped, the mistakes and 
misadventures of a first exploration in an unsurveved 
land. So general has been the survey that I have 
not even paused to define specifically to what de- 
partments of the Spiritual World exclusively the 
principle is to be applied. The danger of making 
a new principle apply too widely inculcates here the 
utmost caution. One thing is certain, and I state it 
pointedly, the application of Natural Law to the 
Spiritual World has decided and necessary limits. 
And if elsewhere with undue enthusiasm I seem to 
magnify the principle at stake, the exaggeration — 



PREFACE. 15 

like the extreme amplification of the moon's disc 
when near the horizon — must be charged to that 
almost necessary aberration of light which distorts 
every new idea while it is yet slowly climbing to its 
zenith. 

In what follows the Introduction, except in the 
setting, there is nothing new. I trust there is nothing 
new. When I began to follow out these lines I had 
no idea where they would lead me. I was prepared, 
nevertheless, at least for the time, to be loyal to the 
method throughout, and share with Nature whatever 
consequences might ensue. But in almost every 
case, after stating what appeared to be the truth in 
words gathered directly from the lips of Nature, I 
was sooner or later startled by a certain similarity 
in the general idea to something I had heard before, 
and this often developed in a moment, and when 
I was least expecting it, into recognition of some 
familiar article of faith. I was not watching for this 
result. I did not begin by tabulating the doctrines, 
as I did the Laws of Nature, and then proceed with 
the attempt to pair them. The majority of them 
seemed at first too far removed from the natural 
world even to suggest this. Still less did I begin 
with doctrines and work downwards to find their 
relations in the natural sphere. It was the opposite 
process entirely. I ran up the Natural Law as far 
as it would go, and the appropriate doctrine seldom 
ever loomed in sight till I had reached the top. 
Then it burst into view in a single moment. 

I can scarcely now say whether in those moments 



\ 



16 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

I was more o vercome with thankfulness that Nature 
was so like Revelation, or more filled with wonder 
that Revelation was so like Nature. Nature, it is 
true, is a part of Revelation — a much greater part 
doubtless than is yet believed — and one could have 
anticipated nothing but harmony here. But that a 
derived Theology, in spite of the venerable verbiage 
which has gathered round it, should be at bottom 
and in all cardinal respects so faithful a transcript 
of " the truth as it is in Nature " came as a surprise, 
and to me at least as a rebuke. How, under the 
rigid necessity of incorporating in its system much 
that seemed nearly unintelligible, and much that was 
barely credible, Theology has succeeded so perfectly 
in adhering through good report and ill to what in 
the main are truly the lines of Nature, awakens a 
new admiration for those who constructed and kept 
this faith. But however nobly it has held its ground, 
Theology must feel to-day that the modern world 
calls for a further proof. Nor will the best Theology 
resent this demand ; it also demands it. Theology 
is searching on every hand for another echo of the 
Yoice of which Revelation also is the echo, that out 
of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should be 
established. That other echo can only come from 
Nature. Hitherto its voice has been muffled. But 
now that Science has made the world around articu- 
late, it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. 
In the first place it offers to corroborate Theology, 
In the second to purify it. 

If the removal of suspicion from Theology is of 



PREFACE. IT 

urgent moment, not less important is the removal 
of its adulterations. These suspicions, many of them 
at least, are new ; in a sense they mark progress. 
But the adulterations are the artificial accumulations 
of centuries of uncontrolled speculation. They are 
the necessary result of the old method and the 
warrant for its revision — they mark the impossibility 
of progress without the guiding and restraining hand 
of Law. The felt exhaustion of the former method, 
the want of corroboration for the old evidence, the 
protest of reason against the monstrous overgrowths 
which conceal the real lines of truth, these summon 
us to the search for a surer and more scientific 
system. With truths of the theological order, with 
dogmas which often depend for their existence on a 
particular exegesis, with propositions which rest for 
their evidence upon a balance of probabilities, or 
upon the weight of authority ; with doctrines which 
every age and nation may make or unmake, which 
each sect may tamper with, and which even the 
individual may modify for himself, a second court 
of appeal has become an imperative necessity. 

Science, therefore, may yet have to be called upon 
to arbitrate at some points between conflicting 
creeds. And while there are some departments of 
Theology where its jurisdiction cannot be sought, 
there are others in which Nature may yet have to 
define the contents as well as the limits of belief. 

What I would desire especially is a thoughtful 
consideration of the method. The applications 
ventured upon here may be successful or unsuc- 



18 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

cessful. But they would more than satisfy me if 
they suggested a method toothers whose less clumsy 
hands might work it out more profitably. For I am 
convinced of the fertility of such a method at the 
present time. It is recognized by all that the 
\ r ounger and abler minds of this age find the most 
serious difficulty in accepting or retaining the 
ordinary forms of belief. Especially is this true of 
those whose culture is scientific. And the reason 
is palpable. No man can study modern Science 
without a change coming over his view of truth. 
What impresses him about Nature is its solidity. 
He is there standing upon actual things, among fixed 
laws. And the integrity of the scientific method so 
seizes him that all other forms of truth begin to 
appear comparatively unstable. He did not know 
before that any form of truth could so hold him ; 
and the immediate effect is to lessen his interest in 
all that stands on other bases. This he feels in spite 
of himself ; he struggles against it in vain ; and he 
finds perhaps to his alarm that he is drifting fast into 
what looks at first like pure Positivism. This is an 
inevitable result of the scientific training. It is quite 
erroneous to suppose that Science ever overthrows 
Faith, if by that is implied that any natural truth 
can oppose successfully any single spiritual truth. 
Science cannot overthrow Faith ; but it shakes it. 
Its own doctrines, grounded in Nature, are so certain, 
that the truths of Keligion, resting to most men on 
Authority, are felt to be strangely insecure. The 
difficulty, therefore, which men of Science feel about 



PREFACE. 19 

Religion is real and inevitable, and in so far as 
Doubt is a conscientious tribute to the inviolability 
of Nature it is entitled to respect. 

None but those who have passed through it can 
appreciate the radical nature of the change wrought 
by Science in the whole mental attitude of its dis- 
ciples. "What they really cry out for in Religion is a 
new standpoint — a standpoint like their own. The 
one hope, therefore, for Science is more Science. 
Again, to quote Bacon — we shall hear enough from 
the moderns by-and-by — "This I dare affirm in 
knowledge of Nature, that a little natural philos- 
ophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the 
opinion to atheism ; but, on the other side, much 
natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will 
bring about men's minds to religion." * 

The application of sim,ilia sim,ilibu& curantur was 
never more in point. If this is a disease, it is the 
disease of Nature, and the cure is more Nature. For 
what is this disquiet in the breasts of men, but the 
loyal fear that Nature is being violated ? Men must 
oppose with every energy they possess what seems to 
them to oppose the eternal course of things. And 
the first step in their deliverance must be not to 
" reconcile " Nature and Religion, but to exhibit 
Nature in Religion. Even to convince them that 
there is no controversy between Religion and Science 
is insufficient. A mere flag of truce, in the nature 
of the case, is here impossible; at least, it is only 
possible so long as neither party is sincere. No man 
* " Meditationes Sacrae," x. 



20 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

who knows the splendor of scientific achievement or 
cares for it, no man who feels the solidity of its 
method or works with it, can remain neutral with 
regard to Religion. He must either extend his 
method into it, or, if that is impossible, oppose it to 
the knife. On the other hand, no one who knows 
the content of Christianity, or feels the universal 
need of a Religion, can stand idly by while the in- 
tellect of his age is slowly divorcing itself from it. 
What is required, therefore, to draw Science and Re- 
ligion together again — for they began the centuries 
hand in hand — is the disclosure of the naturalness of 
the supernatural. Then, and not till then, will men 
see how true it is, that to be loyal to all of Nature, 
they must be loyal to the part defined as Spiritual. 
No science contributes to another without receiving 
a reciprocal benefit. And even as the contribution 
of Science to Religion is the vindication of the natural- 
ness of the Supernatural, so the gift of Religion to 
Science is the demonstration of the superaturalness 
of the Natural. ThuSj as the supernatural becomes 
slowly Natural, will also the Natural become slowly 
Supernatural, until in the impersonal authority of 
Law men everywhere recognize the Authority of 
God. 

To those who already find themselves fully nour- 
ished on the older forms of truth, I do not commend 
these pages. They will find them superfluous. Nor 
is there any reason why they should mingle with 
light which is already clear the distorting rays of a 
foreign expression. 



PREFACE. 21 

But to those who are feeling their way to a Chris- 
tian life, haunted now by a sense of instability in the 
foundations of their faith, now brought to bay by 
specific doubt at one point raising, as all doubt does, 
the question for the whole, I would hold up a light 
which has often been kind to me. There is a sense 
of solidity about a Law of Nature which belongs to 
nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that 
is shifting, is one thing sure ; one thing outside ouiv 
selves, unbiassed, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like 
or dislike, by doubt or fear; one thing that holds on 
its way to me eternally, incorruptible, and undefiled. 
This, more than anything else makes one eager to 
see the Reign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. 
And should this seem to some to offer only a surer, 
but not a higher Faith ; should the better ordering of 
the Spiritual World appear to satisfy the intellect at 
the sacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love ; espe- 
cially should it seem to substitute a Reign of Law 
and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace and a Per- 
sonal God, I will say, with Browning, — 

" I spoke as I saw. 
I report, as a man may of God's work — alVs Love, yet alVs 

Law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me, Each faculty 

tasked, 
To perceive Him, has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was 

asked." 



ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION. 



[For the sake of the general reader who may desire to pass at once to 
the practical application, the following outline of the Introduction- 
devoted rather to general principles— is here presented.] 

PART I. 
Natural Law in the Spiritual Sphere. 

1. The growth of the Idea of Law. 

2. Its gradual extension throughout every department of 

Knowledge. 

3. Except one. Religion hitherto the Great Exception. Why 

so? 

4. Previous attempts to trace analogies between the Natural 

and Spiritual spheres. These have been limited to 
analogies between PhenoTnena ; and are useful mainly 
* as illustrations. Analogies of Law would also have a 
Scientific value. 

5. Wherein that value would consist. (1) The Scientific de- 

mand of the age would be met ; (2) Greater clearness 
would be introduced into Religion practically ; (3) Theo- 
logy, instead of resting on Authority, would rest 
equally on Nature. 

PART II. 
The Law of Continuity. 
A priori argument for Natural Law in the spiritual world, 

1. The Law Discovered. 

2. " Defined. 

3. " Applied. 

4. The objection answered that the material of the Natural 

and Spiritual worlds being different they must be under 
different Laws. 

5. The existence of Laws in the Spiritual world other than 

the Natural Laws (1) improbable, (2) unnecessary, 
(3) unknown. Qualification. 

6. The Spiritual not the projection upwards of the Natural ; 

but the Natural the projection downwards of the 
Spiritual. 

23 



" This ?nethod turns aside from hypotheses not to be 
tested by any known logical canon familiar to science, 
whether the hypothesis claims support from intuition, 
aspiration or general plausibility. And, again, this 
method turns aside from idecd standards ichich avow 
themselves to be lawless, which profess to transcend the 
field of law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for 
us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in 
that region of science (not physical, but moral and social 
science), where we are free to use our intelligence in the 
methods known to us as intelligible logic, methods which 
the intellect can analyze. When you confront us with 
hypotheses, however sublime and however affecting, if 
they cannot be stated in terms of the rest of our knowl- 
edge, if they are disparate to that world of sequence and 
sensation which to us is the ultimate base of all our real 
knowledge, t/ien we shake our heads and turn aside" 

Frederick Harrison. 



INTRODUCTION. 

" Ethical science is already for ever completed, so far as 
her general outline and main principles are concerned, and 
has been, as it were, waiting for physical science to come up 
with her." — Paradoxical Philosophy. 



Natural Law is a new word. It is the l£st and the 
most magnificent discovery of science. No more 
telling proof is open to the modern world of the 
greatness of the idea than the greatness of the at- 
tempts which have always been made to justify it. 
In the earlier centuries, before the birth of science, 
Phenomena were studied alone. The world then 
was a chaos, a collection of single, isolated, and in- 
dependent facts. Deeper thinkers saw, indeed, that 
relations must subsist between these facts, but the 
Reign of Law was never more to the ancients than 
a far-off vision. Their philosophies, conspicuously 
those of the Stoics and Pythagoreans, heroically 
sought to marshal the discrete materials of the 
universe into thinkable form, but from these artificial 
and fantastic systems nothing remains to us now but 
an ancient testimony to the grandeur of that har- 
mony which they failed to reach. 

"With Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, the first 

25 



26 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

regular lines of the universe began to be discerned. 
When Nature yielded to Newton her great secret, 
Gravitation was felt to be not greater as a fact in 
itself than as a revelation that Law was fact. And 
thenceforth the search for individual Phenomena 
gave way before the larger study of their relations. 
The pursuit of Law became the passion of science. 

"What that discovery of Law has done for Nature, 
it is impossible to estimate. As a mere spectacle the 
universe to-dav discloses a beautv so transcendent 
that he who disciplines himself by scientific work 
finds it an overwhelming reward simply to behold it. 
In these Lhws one stands face to face with truth, 
solid and unchangeable. Each single Law is an 
instrument of scientific research, simple in its ad- 
justments, universal in its applications, infallible in 
its results. And despite the limitations of its sphere 
on every side Law is still the largest, richest, and 
surest source of human knowledge. 

It is not necessary for the present to more than 
lightly touch on definitions of Natural Law. The 
Duke of Argyll * indicates five senses in which the 
word is used, but we may content ourselves here by 
taking it in its most simple and obvious significance. 
The fundamental conception of Law is an ascertained 
working sequence or constant order among the 
Phenomena of Nature. This impression of Law as 
order it is important to receive in its simplicity, for 
the idea is often corrupted by having attached to it 
erroneous views of cause and effect. In its true 
* " Reign of Law," chap ii. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

sense Natural Law predicates nothing of causes. 
The Laws of Nature are simply statements of the 
orderly condition of things in Nature, what is found 
in Nature by a sufficient number of competent observ- 
ers. What these Laws are in themselves is not 
agreed. That they have any absolute existence even 
is far from certain. They are relative to man in his 
many limitations, and represent for him the con^ 
stant expression of what he may always expect to 
find in the world around him. But that they have 
any causal connection with the things around him is 
not to be conceived. The Natural Laws originate 
nothing, sustain nothing ; they are merely respon- 
sible for uniformity in sustaining what has been 
originated and what is being sustained. They are 
modes of operation, therefore, not operators ; pro- 
cesses, not powers. The Law of Gravitation, for 
instance, speaks to science only of process. It has 
no light to offer as to itself. Newton did not dis- 
cover Gravity — that is not discovered yet, He dis- 
covered its Law, which is Gravitation, but that tells 
us nothing of its origin, of its nature, or of its cause. 
The Natural Laws then are great lines running 
not only through the world, but, as we now know, 
through the universe, reducing it like parallels of 
latitude to intelligent order. In themselves, be it 
once more repeated, they may have no more abso- 
lute existence than parallels of latitude. But they 
exist for us. They are drawn for us to understand 
the part by some Hand that drew the whole ; so 
drawn, perhaps, that, understanding the part, we 



28 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

too in time may learn to understand the whole. 
Now the inquiry we propose to ourselves resolves 
itself into the simple question, Do these lines stop 
with what we call the Natural sphere ? Is it not 
possible that they may lead further ? Is it probable 
that the Hand which ruled them gave up the work 
where most all they were required ? Did that Hand 
divide the world into two, a cosmos and a chaos, 
the higher being the chaos ? With Nature as the 
symbol of all of harmony and beauty that is known 
to man, must we still talk of the supernatural, not 
as a convenient word, but as a different order of 
world, an unintelligible world, where the Reign of 
Mystery supersedes the Reign of Law? 

This question, let it be carefully observed, applies 
to Laws not to Phenomena. That the Phenomena 
of the Spiritual World are in analogy with the Phe- 
nomena of the Natural World requires no restate- 
ment. Since Plato enunciated his doctrine of the 
Cave or of the twice-divided line; since Christ spake 
in parables ; since Plotinus wrote of the world as 
an imaged image ; since the mysticism of Sweden - 
borg ; since Bacon and Pascal ; since " Sartor Re- 
sartus " and " In Memoriam," it has been all but 
a commonplace with thinkers that " the invisible 
things of God from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made." Milton's question — 

" What if earth 
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
Each to other like more than on earth is thought ? " 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

is now superfluous. " In our doctrine of represen- 
tations and correspondences," sa}^s Swedenborg, 
we shall treat of both these symbolical and typical 
resemblances, and of the astonishing things that 
occur, I will not say in the living body only, but 
throughout Nature, and which correspond so entirely 
to supreme and spiritual things, that one would 
swear that the physical world was purely sym- 
bolical of the spiritual w r orld." * And Carlyle : 
" All visible things are emblems. What thou seest 
is not there on its own account ; strictly speaking is 
not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and 
to represent some idea and body it forth." f 

But the analogies of Law are a totally different 
thing from the analogies of Phenomena and have a 
very different value. To say generally, with Pascal, 
that " La nature est une image de la grace," Js 
merely to be poetical. The function of Hervey's 
"Meditations in a Flower Garden," or, Flavel's 
"Husbandry Spiritualized," is mainly homiletical. 
That such works have an interest is not to be denied. 
The place of parable in teaching, and especially 
after the sanction of the greatest of Teachers, must 
always be recognized. The very necessities of 
language indeed demand this method of presenting 
truth. The temporal is the husk and framework of 
the eternal, and thoughts can be uttered only through 

things. £ 

* " Animal Kingdom. 

t ' k Sartor Resartus," 1858 ed., p. 43. 

% Even parable, however, has always been considered to 
have attached to it a measure of evidential as well as of 



30 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

But analogies between Phenomena bear the same 
relation to analogies of Law that Phenomena them- 
selves bear to Law. The light of Law on truth, as 
we have seen, is an immense advance upon the 
light of Phenomena. The discovery of Law is sim- 
ply the discovery of Science. And if the analogies 
of Natural Law can be extended to the Spiritual 
World, that whole region at once falls within the 
domain of science and secures a basis as well as an 
illumination in the constitution and course of Nature. 
All, therefore, that has been claimed for parable 
can be predicated a fortiori of this — with the ad- 
dition that a proof on the basis of Law would 
Avant no criterion possessed by the most advanced 
science. 

That the validity of analogy generally has been 
seriously questioned one must frankly own. Doubt- 
illustrative value. Thus :" The parable or other analogy to 
spiritual truth appropriated from the world of nature or 
man, is not merely illustrative, but also in some sort proof. 
It is not merely that these analogies assist to make the truth 
intelligible or, if intelligible before, present it more vividly 
to the mind, which is all that some will allow them. Their 
power lies deeper than this, in the harmony unconsciously 
felt by all men , and which all deeper minds have delighted 
to trace, between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that 
analogies from the first are felt to be something more than 
illustrations happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. They are 
arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses ; the world of 
nature being throughout a witness for the world of spirit, 
proceeding from the same hand, growing out of the same 
root, and being constituted for that very end." — (Archbishop 
Trench : " Parables," pp, 12, 13.) 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

less there is much difficulty and even liability to 
gross error in attempting to establish analogy in 
specific cases. The value of the likeness appears 
differently to different minds, and in discussing an 
individual instance questions of relevancy will in- 
variably crop up. Of course, in the language of 
John Stuart Mill, " when the analogy can be proved, 
the argument founded upon it cannot be resisted." * 
But so great is the difficulty of proof that many are 
compelled to attach the most inferior weight to 
analogy as a method of reasoning. " Analogical 
evidence is generally more successful in silencing 
objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely 
refutes it frequently repels refutation ; like those 
weapons which though they cannot kill the enemy, 
will ward his blows. . . It must be allowed 
that analogical evidence is at least but a feeble 
support, and is hardly ever honored with the name 
of proof." f Other authorities on the other hand, such 
as Sir William Hamilton, admit analogy to a primary 
place in logic and regard it as the very basis of 
induction. 

But, fortunately, we are spared all discussion on 
this worn subject, for two cogent reasons. For one 
thing, we do not demand of Nature directly to 
prove Eeligion. That was never its function. Its 
function is to interpret. And this, after all, is pos- 
sibly the most fruitful proof. The best proof of a 
thing is that we see it ; if we do not see it, perhaps 

* Mill's " Logic," vol. ii. p. 96. 

f Campbell's " Rhetoric," vol. i. p. 114. 



32 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

proof will not convince us of it. It is the want 
of the discerning faculty, the clairvoyant power 
of seeing the eternal in the temporal, rather than 
the failure of the reason, that begets the sceptic. 
But secondly, and more particularly, a significant 
circumstance has to be taken into account, which, 
though it will appear more clearly afterwards, may 
be stated here at once. The position we have been 
led to take up is not that the Spiritual Laws are 
analogous to the Natural Laws, but that they are 
the same Laws. It is not a question of analogy 
but of Identity. The Natural Laws are not the 
shadows or images of the Spiritual in the same sense 
as autumn is emblematical of Decay, or the falling 
leaf of Death. The Natural Laws, as the Laws of 
Continuity might well warn us, do not stop with 
the visible and then give place to a new set of 
Laws bearing a strong similitude to them. The 
Laws of the invisible are the same Laws, projections 
of the natural not supernatual. Analogous Phe- 
nomena are not the fruit of parallel Laws, but of 
the same Laws — Laws which at one end, as it 
were, may be dealing with Matter, at the other 
end with Spirit. As there will be some incon- 
venience, however, in dispensing with the word 
analogy, we shall continue occasionally to employ it. 
Those who apprehend the real relation will mentally 
substitute the larger term. 

Let us now look for a moment at the present 
state of the question. Can it be said that the Laws 
of the Spiritual World are in any sense considered 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

even to have analogies with the Natural World ? 
Here and there certainly one finds an attempt, and 
a successful attempt, to exhibit on a rational basis 
one or two of the great Moral Principles of the 
Spiritual World. But the Physical World has not 
been appealed to. Its magnificent system of Laws 
remains outside, and its contribution meanwhile is 
either silently ignored or purposely set aside. The 
Physical, it is said, is too remote from the Spiritual. 
The Moral World may afford a basis for religious 
truth, but even this is often the baldest con- 
cession ; while the appeal to the Physical universe 
is everywhere dismissed as on the face of it, 
irrelevant and unfruitful. Prom the scientific 
side, again, nothing has been done to court a 
closer fellowship. Science has taken theology at its 
own estimate. It is a thing apart. The Spiritual \ 
World is not only a different world, but a different ( 
kind of a world, a world arranged on a totally 
different principle, under a different governmental 
scheme. 

The Peign of Law has gradually crept into every 
department of Nature, transforming knowledge 
everywhere into Science. The process goes on, and 
Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, 
until the borders of the Spiritual World are reached. 
There the Law of Continuity ceases, and the har- 
mony breaks down. And men who have learned 
their elementary lessons truly from the alphabet of 
the lower Laws, going on to seek a higher knowl- 



34 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

edge, are suddenly confronted with the Great 
Exception. 

Even those who have examined most carefully 
the relations of the Natural and the Spiritual, seem 
to have committed themselves deliberately to a 
final separation in matters of Law. It is a surprise 
to find such a writer as Horace Bushnell, for 
instance, describing the Spiritual World as " another 
system of nature incommunicably separate from 
ours," and further defining it thus : " God has, in 
fact, erected another and higher system, that of 
spiritual being and government for which nature 
exists ; a system not under the law of cause and 
effect, but ruled and marshalled under other kinds 
of laws."* Few men have shown more insight 
than Bushnell in illustrating Spiritual truth from the 
Natural World ; but he has not only failed to per- 
ceive the analogy with regard to Law, but em- 
phatically denies it. 

In the recent literature of this whole region there 
nowhere seems any advance upon the position of 
" Nature and the Supernatural." All are agreed in 
speaking of Nature and the Supernatural. Nature 
in the Supernatural, so far as Laws are concerned, 
is still an unknown truth. 

" The Scientific Basis of Faith " is a suggestive 
title. The accomplished author announces that 
the object of his investigation is to show that 
" the world of nature and mind, as made known 
by science, constitute a basis and a preparation 
* " Nature and the Supernatural," p. 19, 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

for that highest moral and spiritual life of man, 
which is evoked by the self-revelation of God."* 
On the whole, Mr. Murphy seems to be more 
philosophical and more profound in his view of the 
relation of science and religion than any writer of 
modern times. His conception of religion is broad 
and lofty, his acquaintance with science adequate. 
He makes constant, admirable, and often original 
use of analogy ; and yet, in spite of the promise 
of this quotation, he has failed to find any analogy 
in that department of Law where surely, of all 
others, it might most reasonably be looked for. 
In the broad subject even of the analogies of what 
he defines as " evangelical religion " with Nature, 
Mr. Murphy discovers nothing. ISTor can this be 
traced either to short-sight or over-sight. The sub- 
ject occurs to him more than once, and he deliber- 
ately dismisses it — dismisses it not merely as un- 
fruitful, but with a distinct denial of its relevancv. 
The memorable paragraph from Origen which 
forms the text of Butler's " Analogy," he calls 
"this shallow and false saying." f He says: "The 
designation of Butler's scheme of religious philo- 
sophy ought then to be the analogy of religion, 
legal and evangelical, to the constitution of nature. 
But does this give altogether a true meaning? 
Does this double analogy really exist? If justice 
is natural law among beings having a moral 
nature, there is the closest analogy between the 

* •• The Scientific Basis of Faith." By J. J. Murphy, p. 466. 
f Op. cit, p. 333. 



36 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

constitution of nature and merely legal religion. 
Legal religion is only the extension of natural 
justice into a future life. . . . But is this true 
of evangelical religion ? Have the doctrines of 
Divine grace any similar support in the analogies of 
nature? I trow not."* And with reference to a 
specific question, speaking of immortality, he asserts 
that " the analogies of mere nature are opposed to 
the doctrine of immortality." f 

With regard to Butler's great work in this de- 
partment, it is needless at this time of day to point 
out that his aims did not lie exactly in this direc- 
tion. He did not seek to indicate analogies 
between religion and the constitution and course of 
Nature. His theme was, " The Analogy of Religion 
to the constitution and course of Nature." And 
although he pointed out direct analogies of Phe- 
nomena, such as those between the metamorphoses 
of insects and the doctrine of a future state; and 
although he showed that "the natural and moral 
constitution and government of the world are so 
connected as to make up together but one scheme," § 
his real intention was not so much to construct 
arguments as to repel objections. His emphasis 
accordingly was laid upon the difficulties of the two 
schemes rather than on their positive lines; and 
so thoroughly has he made out his point, that as 
is well known, the effect upon many has been, not 
to lead them to accept the Spiritual World on the 
ground of the Natural, but to make them despair 

* Op. cit. p. 333. f Ibid., p. 331. % " Analogy," chap. vii. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

of both. Butler lived at a time when defence was 
more necessary than construction, when the materials 
for construction were scarce and insecure, and when, 
besides, some of the things to be defended were 
quite incapable of defence. Notwithstanding this, 
his influence over the whole field since has been 
unparalleled. 

After all, then, the Spiritual World, as it appears 
at this moment, is outside Natural Law. Theology 
continues to be considered, as it has always been, 
a thing apart. It remains still a stupendous and 
splendid construction, but on lines altogether its 
own. Nor is Theology to be blamed for this. Nature 
has been long in speaking; even yet its voice is 
low, sometimes inaudible. Science is the true de- 
faulter, for Theology had to wait patiently for its 
development. As the highest of the sciences, 
Theology in the order of evolution should be the 
last to fall into rank. It is reserved for it to perfect 
the final harmony. Still, if it continues longer to 
remain a thing apart, with increasing reason will be 
such protests as this of the " Unseen Universe," when, 
in speaking of a view of miracles held by an older 
Theology, it declares :— " If he submits to be guided 
by such interpreters, each intelligent being will for 
ever continue to be baffled in any attempt to explain 
these phenomena because they are said to have no 
physical relation to anything that went before or that 
followed after ; in fine, they are made to form a 
universe within a universe, a portion cut off by an 



38 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

insurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific 
inquiry." * 

This is the secret of the present decadence of 
Religion in the world of Science. For Science can 
hear nothing of a Great Exception. Constructions 
on unique lines, " portions cut off by an insurmount- 
able barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry," 
it dare not recognize. Nature has taught it this 
lesson, and Nature is right. It is the province of 
Science to vindicate Nature here at any hazard. 
But in blaming Theology for its intolerance, it has 
been betrayed into an intolerance less excusable. It 
has pronounced upon it too soon. What if Religion 
be yet brought within the sphere of Law? Law is 
the revelation of time. One by one slowly through 
the centuries the Sciences have crystallized into geo- 
metrical form, each form not only perfect in itself, 
but perfect in its relation to all other forms. Many 
forms had to be perfected before the form of the 
Spiritual. The Inorganic has to be worked out before 
the Organic, the Natural before the Spiritual. The- 
ology at present has merely an ancient and provisional 
philosophic form. By-and-by it will be seen whether 
it be not susceptible of another. For Theology must 
pass through the necessary stages of progress, like 
any other science. The method of science-making 
is now fully established. In almost all cases the 
natural history and development are the same. 
Take, for example, the case of Geology. A century 
ago there was none. Science went out to look for it, 
* " Unseen Universe." 6th ed., pp. 89, 90, 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

and brought back a Geology which, if Nature were a 
harmonv, had falsehood written almost on its face. 
It was the Geology of Catastrophism, a Geology so 
out of line with Nature as revealed by the other sci- 
ences, that on a priori grounds a thoughtful mind 
might have been justified in dismissing it as a final 
form of any science. And its fallacy was soon and 
thoroughly exposed. The advent of modified unifor- 
mitarian principles all but banished the word catas- 
trophe from science, and marked the birth of Geol- 
ogy as we know it now. Geology, that is to say, 
had fallen at last into the great scheme of Law. Reli- 
gious doctrines, many of them at least, have been up 
to this time all but as catastrophic as the old Geology. 
They are not on the lines of Nature as we have 
learned to decipher her. If any one feel, as Science 
complains that it feels, that the lie of things in the 
Spiritual World as arranged by Theology is not in 
harmony with the world around, is not, in short, 
scientific, he is entitled to raise the question whether 
this be really the final form of those departments of 
Theology to which his complaint refers. He is justi- 
fied, moreover, in demanding a new investigation 
with all modern methods and resources ; and Science 
is bound by its principles not less than by the lessons 
of its own past, to suspend judgment till the last 
attempt is made. The success of such an attempt 
will be looked forward to with hopefulness or fearful- 
ness just in proportion to one's confidence in Nature 
— in proportion to one's belief in the divinity of man 
and in the divinity of things. If there is any truth 



40 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

in the unit}^ of Nature, if that supreme principle of 
Continuity which is growing in splendor with every 
discovery of science, the conclusion is foregone. If 
there is any foundation for Theology, if the phe- 
nomena of the Spiritual World are real, in the nature 
of things they ought to come into the sphere of 
Law. Such is at once the demand of Science upon 
Religion and the prophecy that it can and shall be 
fulfilled. 

The Botany of Linnasus, a purely artificial system, 
was a splendid contribution to human knowledge, 
and did more in its day to enlarge the view of the 
vegetable kingdom than all that had gone before. 
But all artificial systems must pass away. None knew 
better than the great Swedish naturalist himself that 
his system, being artificial, was but provisional. 
Nature must be read in its own light. And as the 
botanical field became more luminous, the system of 
Jussieu and De Candolle slowly emerged as a native 
growth, unfolded itself as naturally as the petals of 
one of its own flowers, and forcing itself upon men's 
intelligence as the very voice of Nature, banished 
the Linnaaan system for ever. It were unjust to say 
that the present Theology is as artificial as the sys- 
tem of Linnaaus ; in many particulars it wants but a 
fresh expression to make it in the most modern sense 
scientific. But if it has a basis in the constitution 
and course of Nature, that basis has never been ade- 
quately shown. It has depended on Authority rather 
than on Law ; and a new basis must be sought and 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

found if it is to be presented to. those with whom 
Law alone is Authority. 

It is not of coarse to be inferred that the scientific 
method will ever abolish the radical distinctions of 
the Spiritual World. True science proposes to itself 
no such general levelling in any department. Within 
the unity of the whole there must always be room 
for the characteristic differences of the parts, and 
those tendencies of thought at the present time 
which ignore such distinctions, in their zeal for 
simplicity really create confusion. As has been 
well said by Mr. Hutton : " Any attempt to merge 
the distinctive characteristic of a higher science in a 
lower — of chemical changes in mechanical — of phy- 
siological in chemical — above all, of mental changes 
in physiological — is a neglect of the radical assump- 
tion of all science, because it is an attempt to deduce 
representations — or rather misrepresentations — of 
one kind of phenomenon from a conception of another 
kind which does not contain it, and must have it 
implicitly and illicitly smuggled in before "it can be 
extracted out of it. Hence, instead of increasing 
our means of representing the universe to ourselves 
without the detailed examination of particulars, such 
a procedure leads to misconstructions of fact on the 
basis of an imported theory, and generally ends in 
forcibly perverting the least-known science to the 
type of the better known." * 

What is wanted is simply a unity of conception, 
but not such a unity of conception as should be 
*" Essay*," v<*l., p. 40. 



42 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

founded on an absolute identity of phenomena. 
This latter might indeed be a unity, but it would 
be a very tame one. The perfection of unity is 
attained where there is infinite variety of phe- 
nomena, infinite complexity of relation, but great 
simplicity of Law. Science will be complete when all 
known phenomena can be arranged in one vast circle 
in which a few well known Laws shall form the radii — 
these radii at once separating and uniting, separating 
into particular groups, yet uniting all to a common 
centre. To show that the radii for some of the most 
characteristic phenomena of the Spiritual World are 
already drawn within that circle by science is the 
main object of the papers which follow. There will 
be found an attempt to re-state a few of the more 
elementary facts of the Spiritual Life in terras of 
Biology. Any argument for Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World may be best tested in the & posteriori 
form: And although the succeeding pages are not 
designed in the first instance to prove a principle, 
they may yet be entered here as evidence. The 
practical test is a severe one, but on that account all 
the more satisfactory. 

And what will be gained if the point be made out ? 
Not a few things. For one, as partly indicated 
alreadv, the scientific demand of the a°:e will be 
satisfied. That demand is that all that concerns 
life and conduct shall be placed on a scientific basis. 
The only great attempt to meet that at present is 
Positivism. 

But what again is a scientific basis ? What exactly 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

is this demand of the age ? " By Science I under 
stand," says Huxley, " all knowledge which rests 
upon evidence and reasoning of a like character to 
that which claims our assent to ordinary scientific 
propositions ; and if any one is able to make good 
the assertion that his theology rests upon valid 
evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to 
me that such theology must take its place as a part 
of science." That the assertion has been already 
made good is claimed by many who deserve to be 
heard on questions of scientific evidence. But if more 
is wanted by some minds, more not perhaps of a higher 
kind but of a different kind, at least the attempt can 
be made to gratify them. Mr. Frederic Harrison,* 
in name of the Positive method of thought, " turns 
aside from ideal standards which avow themslves to 
be lawless [the italics are Mr. Harrison's], which pro- 
fess to transcend the field of law. We say, life and 
conduct shall stand for us wholly on a basis of law, 
and must rest entirely in that region of science (not 
physical, but moral and social science) where we are 
free to use our intelligence, in the methods known to 
us as intelligible logic, methods which the intellect 
can analyze. When you confront us with hypotheses, 
however sublime and however affecting, if they can- 
not be stated in terms of the rest of our knowledge, 
if they are disparate to that world of sequence and 
sensation which to us is the ultimate base of all our 
real knowledge, then we shake our heads and turn 

* " A Modern Symposium." — Nineteenth Century, vol. i., 
p. 625. 



4:4 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

aside." This is a most reasonable demand, and we 
humbly accept the challenge. ¥e think religious 
truth, or at all events certain of the largest facts of 
the Spiritual Life', can be stated u in terms of the rest 
of our knowledge." 

We do not say, as already hinted, that the pro- 
posal includes an attempt to prove the existence of 
the Spiritual World. Does that need proof % And 
if so, what sort of evidence would be considered 
in court? The facts of the Spiritual World areas 
real to thousands as the facts of the Natural World — 
and more real to hundreds. But were one asked to 
prove that the Spiritual world can be discerned by 
the appropriate faculties, one would doit precisely as 
one would attempt to prove the Natural World to 
be an object of recognition to the senses — and with 
as much or as little success. In either instance 
probably the fact would be found incapable of 
demonstration, but not more in the one case than in 
the other. Were one asked to prove the existence 
of Spiritual Life, one would also do it exactly as one 
would seek to prove Natural Life. And this perhaps 
might be attempted with more hope. But this is 
not on the immediate programme. Science deals 
with known facts ; and accepting certain known 
facts in the Spiritual World we proceed to arrange 
them, to discover their Laws, to inquire if they can 
be stated " in terms of the rest of our knowledge." 

At the same time, although attempting no philo- 
sophical proof of the existence of a Spiritual Life 
and a Spiritual World, we are not without hope 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

that the general line of thought here may be useful 
to some who are honestly inquiring in these direc- 
tions. The stumbling-block to most minds is per- 
haps less the mere existence of the unseen than the 
want of definition, the apparently hopeless vague- 
ness, and not least, the delight in this vagueness as 
mere vagueness by some who look upon this as 
the mark of quality in Spiritual things. It will 
be at least something to tell earnest seekers that 
the Spiritual World is not a castle in the air, of an 
architecture unknown to earth or heaven, but a fair 
ordered realm furnished with many familiar things 
and ruled by well-remembered Laws. 

It is scarcely necessary to emphasize under a 
second head the gain in clearness. The Spiritual 
World as it stands is full of perplexity. One can 
escape doubt only by escaping thought. With re- 
gard to many important articles of religion, per- 
haps the best and the worse course at present open 
to a doubter is simply credulity. Who is to answer 
for this state of things ? It comes as a necessary 
tax for improvement on the age in which we live. 
The old ground of faith, Authority, is given up, 
the new, Science, has not yet taken its place. Men 
did not require to see truth before ; they only 
needed to believe it. Truth, therefore, had not 
been put by Theology in a seeing form — which, 
however, was its original form. But now they ask 
to see it. And when it is shown them they start 
back in despair. We shall not say what they see. 
But we shall say what they might see. If the 



46 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Natural Laws were run through the Spiritual "World, 
they might see the great lines of religious truth 
as clearly and simply as the broad lines of science. 
As they gazed into that Natural -Spiritual World 
they would say to themselves, " We have seen 
semething like this before. This order is known 
to us. It is not arbitrary. This Law here is that 
old Law there, and this Phenomenon here, what can 
it be but that which stood in precisely the same 
relation to that Law } r onder ? " And so gradually 
from the new form everything assumes new meaning. 
So the Spiritual World becomes slowly Natural ; and, 
what is of all but equal moment, the Natural World 
becomes slowly Spiritual. Nature is not a mere 
image or emblem of the Spiritual, It is a working, 
model of the Spiritual. In the Spiritual World the 
same wheels revolve — but without the iron. The 
same figures flit across the stage, the same processes 
of growth go on, the same functions are discharged, 
the same biological laws prevail — only with a dif- 
ferent quality of Bio?. Plato's prisoner, if not out 
of the Cave, has at least his face to the light. 

" The earth is cram'd with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God." 

How much of the Spiritual world is covered by 
Natural Law we do not propose at present to inquire. 
It is certain, at least, that the whole is not covered. 
And nothing more lends confidence to the method 
than this. For one thing, room is still left for 
mystery. Had no place remained for mystery it 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

had proved itself both unscientific and irreligious. 
A Science without mystery is unknown ; a Religion 
without mystery is absurd. This is no attempt to 
reduce Religion to a question of mathematics, or 
demonstrate God in biological formulae. The elimi- 
nation of myster}^ from the universe is the elimina- 
tion of Religion. However far the scientific method 
may penetrate the Spiritual World, there will always 
remain a region to be explored by a scientific 
faith. " I shall never rise to the point of view 
which wishes to ' raise ' faith to knowledge. To 
me, the way of truth is to come through the knowl- 
edge of my ignorance to the submissiveness of 
faith, and then, making that my starting place, to 
raise my knowledge into faith." * 

Lest this proclamation of mystery should seem 
alarming, let us add that this mystery also is scien- 
tific. The one subject on which all scientific men 
are agreed, the one theme on which all alike become 
eloquent, the one strain of pathos in all their writing 
and speaking and thinking, concerns that final un- 
certainty, that utter blackness of darkness bound- 
ing their work on every side. If the light of Nature 
is to illuminate for us the Spiritual Sphere there may 
well be a black Unknown, corresponding, at least 
at some points, to this zone of darkness^ round the 
Natural World. 

But the final gain would appear in the department 
of Theology. The establishment of the Spiritual 
Laws on " the solid ground of Nature," to which the 

*Beck : " Bib. Psychol.," Clark's Ti\, Pref., 2d Ed., p. xiii. 



43 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

mind trusts " which builds for aye," would offer 
a new basis for certainty in Religion. It has been 
indicated that the authority of Authority is waning. 
This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable. 
Authority — man's Authority that is — is for children. 
And there necessarily comes a time when they add 
to the question, What shall I do ? or, What shall 
I believe ? the adult's interrogation — "Why ? Now 
this question is sacred, and must be answered. 

" How truly its central position is impregnable," 
Herbert Spencer has well discerned, " religion has 
never adequately realized. In the devoutest faith, 
as we habitually see, there lies hidden an inner- 
most core of scepticism ; and it is this scepticism 
which causes that dread of inquiry displayed by relig- 
ion when face to face with science." * True indeed ; 
Religion has never realized how impregnable are 
many of its positions. It has not yet been placed 
on that basis which would make them impregnable. 
And in a transition period like the present, holding 
Authority with one hand, the other feeling all 
around in the darkness for some strong new support, 
Theology is surely to he pitied. Whence this dread 
when brought face to face with Science? It cannot 
be dread of scientific fact. Ko single fact in Science 
has ever discredited a fact in Religion. The 
theologian knows that, and admits that he has no 
fear of facts. What then has Science done to make 
Theology tremble ? It is its method. It is its 
system. It is its Reign of Law. It is its harmony 
* " First Principles," p. 161. 



INTRODUCTION. 49 

and continuity. The attack is not specific. Eo one 
point is assailed. It is the whole system which 
when compared with the other and weighed in its 
balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked 
at the first cannot look upon this. To do that, and 
rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury 
itself. 

Herbert Spencer points out further, with how 
much truth need not now be discussed, that the 
purification of Religion has always come from 
Science. It is very apparent at all events that an 
immense debt must soon be contracted. The shift- 
ing of the furnishings will be a work of time. But 
it must be accomplished. And not the least result 
of the process will be the effect upon Science itself. 
]STo department of knowledge ever contributes to 
another without receiving its own again with usury 
— witness the reciprocal favors of Biology and 
Sociology. From the time that Comte defined 
the analogy between the phenomena exhibited by 
aggregations of associated men and those of animal 
colonies, the Science of Life and the Science of 
Societ}^ have been so contributing to one another 
that their progress since has been all but hand-in- 
hand. A conception borrowed by the one has been 
observed in time finding its way back, and always in 
an enlarged form, to further illuminate and enrich 
the field it left. So must it be with Science and 
Religion. If the purification of Religion comes from 
Science, the purificatiom of Science, in a deeper 
sense, shall come from Religion. The true ministry 
4 



50 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

of Nature must at last be honored, and Science 
take its place as the great expositor. To Men of 
Science, not less than to Theologians, 

" Science then 
Shall be a precious visitant ; and then, 
And only then, be worthy of her name ; 
For then her heart shall kindle, her dull eye, 
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang 
Chained to its object in brute slavery ; 
But taught with patient interest to watch 
The process of things, and serve the cause 
Of order and distinctness, not for this 
Shall it forget that its most noble use, 
Its most illustrious province, must be found 
In furnishing clear guidance, a support, 
Not treacherous, to the minds's excursive power." * 

But the gift of Science to Theology shall be not 
less rich. With the inspiration of Nature to illu- 
minate what the inspiration of Revelation has left 
obscure, heresy in certain whole departments shall 
become impossible. With the demonstration of the 
naturalness of the supernatural, scepticism even may 
come to be regarded as unscientific. And those 
who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to 
ennoble life and rest their souls in thinking of the 
future will not be left in doubt. 

It is impossible to believe that the amazing suc- 
cession of revelations in the domain of Nature during 
the last few centuries, at which the world has all but 
grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing for 
the higher life. If the development of doctrine is 
to have any meaning for the future, Theology must 
* Wordsworth's Excursion, Book IV. 






INTRODUCTION. 51 

draw upon the further revelation of the seen for the 
further revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, 
add nothing to fact ; but as the vision of Newton 
rested on a clearer and richer world than that of 
Plato, so, though seeing the same things in the Spirit- 
ual World as our fathers, we may see them clearer 
and richer. With the work of the centuries upon it, 
the mental eye is a finer instrument and demands a 
more ordered world. Had the revelation of Law 
been given sooner, it had been unintelligible. Reve- 
lation never volunteers anything that man could 
discover for himself — on the principle, probably, that 
it is only when he is capable of discovering it that 
he is capable of appreciating it. Besides, children 
do not need Laws, except Laws in the sense of com- 
mandments. They repose with simplicity on author- 
ity, and ask no questions. But there comes a time, 
as the world reaches its manhood, when they will ask 
questions, and stake, moreover, everything on the 
answers. That time is now. Hence we must ex- 
hibit our doctrines, not lying athwart the lines of the 
world's thinking, in a place reserved, and therefore 
shunned, for the Great Exception ; but in their kin- 
ship to all truth and in their Law-relation to the whole 
of Nature. This is, indeed, simply following out the 
system of teaching begun by Christ Himself. And 
what is the search for spiritual truth in the Laws of 
Nature but an attempt to utter the parables which 
have been hid so long in the world around without a 
preacher, and to tell men once more that the King 
dom of Heaven is like unto this and to that ? 



PAKTIL 

The Law of Continuity having been referred to 
already as a prominent factor in this inquiry, it may 
not be out of place to sustain the plea for Natural 
Law in the Spiritual Sphere by a brief statement 
and application of this great principle. The Law 
of Continuity furnishes an a priori argument for the 
position we are attempting to establish of the most 
convincing kind — of such a kind, indeed, as to seem 
to our mind final. Briefly indicated, the ground 
taken up is this, that if Nature be a harmony, Man 
in all his relations — physical, mental, moral, and 
spiritual — falls to be included within its circle. It is 
altogether unlikely that man spiritual should be vio- 
lently separated in all the conditions of growth, de- 
velopment, and life, from man physical. It is indeed 
difficult to conceive that one set of principles should 
guide the natural life, and these at a certain period — 
the very point where they are needed — suddenly give 
place to another set of principles altogether new and 
unrelated. Nature has never taught us to expect 
such a catastrophe. She has nowhere prepared 
us for it. And Man cannot in the nature of 
things, in the nature of thought, in the nature 
S3 



INTRODUCTION. 53 

of language, be separated into two such incoherent 
halves. 

The spiritual man, it is true, is to be studied 
in a different department of science from the 
natural man. But the harmony established by 
science is not a harmony within specific depart- 
ments. It is the universe that is the harmony, 
the universe of which these are but parts. And 
the harmonies of the parts depend for all their 
weight and interest on the harmony of the whole. 
While, therefore, there are many harmonies 
there is but one harmony. The breaking up of 
the phenomena of the universe into carefully 
guarded groups, and the allocation of certain 
prominent Laws to each, it must never be for- 
gotten, and however much Mature lends herself 
to it, are artificial. We find an evolution in 
Botany, another in Geology, and another in 
Astronomy, and the effect is to lead one insensi- 
bly to look upon these as three distinct evo- 
lutions. But these sciences, of course are mere 
departments created by ourselves to facilitate 
knowledge — reductions of Nature to the scale of 
our own intelligence. And we must beware 
of breaking up Nature except for this purpose. 
Science has so dissected everything, that it becomes 
a mental difficulty to put the puzzle together 
again ; and we must keep ourselves in practice 
by constantly thinking of Nature as a whole, 
if science is not to be spoiled by its own re- 
finements. Evolution being found in so many 



54 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

different sciences, the likelihood is that it is a 
universal principle. And there is no presump- 
tion whatever against this Law and many others 
being excluded from the domain of the spiritual 
life. On the other hand, there are very con- 
vincing reasons why the Natural Laws should 
be continuous through the Spiritual Sphere — not 
changed in any way to meet the new circumstances, 
but continuous as they stand. 

But to the exposition. One of the most strik- 
ing generalizations of recent science is that even 
Laws have their Law. Phenomena first, in the 
progress of knowledge, were grouped together, 
and Nature shortly presented the spectacle of a 
cosmos, the lines of beauty being the great Natural 
Laws. So long, however, as these Laws were 
merely great lines running through Nature, so long 
as they remained isolated from one another, the 
system of Nature was still incomplete. The principle 
which sought Law among Phenomena had to go 
further and seek a Law among the Laws. Laws 
themselves accordingly came to be treated as they 
treated phenomena, and found themselves finally 
grouped in a still narrower circle. That inmost 
circle is governed bv one great Law, the Law of 
Continuity. It is the Law for Laws. 

It is perhaps significant that few exact definitions 
of Continuity are to be found. Even in Sir W. R. 
Grove's famous paper,* the fountain-head of the 
modern form of this far from modern truth, there is 
* " The Correlation of Physical Forces," 6th ed. p. 181 et seq. 



INTRODUCTION. 55 

no attempt at definition. In point of fact, its sweep 
is so magnificent, it appeals so much more to the 
imagination than to the reason, that men have pre- 
ferred to exhibit rather than to define it. Its true 
greatness consists in the final impression it leaves on 
the mind with regard to the uniformity of Nature. 
For it was reserved for the Law of Continuity to pat 
the finishing touch to the harmony of the universe. 

Probably the most satisfactory way to secure for 
oneself a just appreciation of the Principle of Con- 
tinuity is to try to conceive the universe without it. 
The opposite of a continuous universe would be a 
discontinuous universe, an incoherent and irrelevant 
universe — as irrelevant in all its ways of doing things 
as an irrelevant person. In effect, to withdraw Con- 
tinuity from the universe would be the same as to 
withdraw reason from an individual. The universe 
would run deranged ; the world would be a mad 
world. 

There used to be a children's book which bore 
the fascinating title of " The Chance World." It 
described a world in which ever} r ching happened by 
chance. The sun might rise or it might not : or it 
might appear at any hour, or the moon might come 
up instead. When children were born they might 
have one head or a dozen heads, and those heads 
might not be on their shoulders — there might be no 
shoulders — but arranged about the limbs. If one 
jumped up in the air it was impossible to predict 
whether he would ever come down again. That he 
came down yesterday was no guarantee that he 



56 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

would do it next time. For every day antecedent 
and consequent varied, and gravitation and every- 
thing else changed from hour to hour. To-day a 
child's body might be so light that it was impossible 
for it to descend from its chair to the floor ; but to- 
morrow, in attempting the experiment again, the 
impetus might drive it through a three-story house 
and dash it to pieces somewhere near the centre of 
the earth. In this chance world cause and effect 
were abolished. Law was annihilated. And the 
result to the inhabitants of such a world could only 
be that reason would be impossible. It would be a 
lunatic world with a population of lunatics. 

Xow this is no more than a real picture of what 
the world would be without Law, or the universe 
without Continuity. And hence we come in 
sight of the necessity of some principle or Law 
according to which Laws shall be, and be " con- 
tinuous," throughout the system. Man as a rational 
and moral being demands a pledge that if he de- 
pends on Nature for any given result on the ground 
that Nature has previously led him to expect such 
a result, his intellect shall not be insulted, nor his 
confidence in her abused. If he is to trust Nature, 
in short, it must be guaranteed to him that in doing 
so he will "never be put to confusion." The 
authors of the Unseen Universe conclude their ex- 
amination of this principle by saying that " assuming 
the existence of a supreme Governor of the universe, 
the Principle of Continuity may be said to be the 

L mf mi 

definite expression in words of our trust that H$ 



INTBODUCTION. 57 

will not put us to permanent intellectual confusion, 
and we can easily conceive similar expressions of 
trust with reference to the other faculties of man." * 
Or, as it has been well put elsewhere, Continuity is 
the expression of " the Divine Veracity in Nature." f 
The most striking examples of the continuousness of 
Law are perhaps those furnished by Astronomy, 
especially in connection with the more recent appli- 
cations of spectrum analysis. But even in the case 
of the simpler Laws the demonstration is complete. 
There is no reason apart from Continuity to expect 
that gravitation for instance should prevail outside 
our world. But wherever matter has been detected 
throughout the entire universe, whether in the form 
of star or planet, comet or meteorite, it is found to 
obey that Law. " If there were no other indication 
of unity than this, it would be almost enough. For 
the unity which is implied in the mechanism of the 
heavens is indeed a unity which is all-embracing and 
complete. The stucture of our own bodies, with all 
that depends upon it, is a structure governed by, 
and therefore adapted to, the same force of gravita- 
tion which has determined the form and the move- 
ments of myriads of worlds. Every part of the 
human organism is fitted to conditions which would 
all be destroyed in a moment if the forces of gravi- 
tation were to change or fail." J 

* Unseen Universe/' 6th ed,. p. 88. 

f "Old Faiths in New Light," by Newman Smith. Unwin's 
English edition, p. 252. 

X The Duke of Argyll : Contenqjorai'y Review, Sept. , 1880, 
p. 358. 



58 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

But it is unnecessary to multiply illustrations. 
Having defined the principle we may proceed at 
once to apply it. And the argument may be 
summed up in a sentence. As the Natural Laws are 
continuous through the universe of matter and of 
space, so will they be continuous through the uni- 
verse of spirit. 

If this be denied, what then ? Those who deny 
it must furnish the disproof. The ' argument is 
founded on a principle which is now acknowledged 
to be universal ; and the onus of disproof must lie 
with those who may be bold enough to take up the 
position that a region exists w T here at last the Prin- 
ciple of Continuity fails. To do this one would first 
have to overturn Nature, then Science, and last, the 
human mind. 

It may seem an obvious objection that many of 
the Natural Laws have no connection whatever with 
the Spiritual World, and as a matter of fact are not 
continued through it. Gravitation for instance. — 
what direct application has that in the Spiritual 
"World? The reply is threefold. First, there is no 
proof that it does not hold there. If the spirit be 
in any sense material it certainly must hold. In 
the second place, gravitation may hold for the 
Spiritual Sphere although it cannot be directly 
proved. The spirit may be armed with powers which 
enable it to rise superior to gravity. During the 
action of these powers gravity need be no more sus- 
pended than in the case of a plant which rises in 
the air during the process of growth. It does this 



INTRODUCTION. 59 

in virtue of a higher Law and in apparent defiance 
of the lower. Thirdly, if the spiritual be riot 
material it still cannot be said that gravitation 
ceases at that point to be continuous. It is not 
gravitation that ceases — it is matter. 

This point," however, will require development for 
another reason. In the case of the plant just referred 
to, there is a principle of growth or vitality at work 
superseding the attraction of gravity. Why is there 
no trace of that Law in the Inorganic world ? Is not 
this another instance of the discontinuonsness of 
Law ? If the Law of vitality has so little connection 
with the Inorganic kingdom — less even than gravi- 
tation with the Spiritual, what becomes of Con- 
tinuity ? Is it not evident that each kingdom of 
Nature has its own set of Laws which continue 
possibly untouched for the specific kingdom but 
never extend beyond it ? 

It is quite true that when we pass from the In- 
organic to the Organic, we come upon a new set of 
Laws. But the reason why the lower set do not seem 
to act in the higher sphere is not that they are anni- 
hilated, but they are overruled. And the reason 
why the higher Laws are not found operating in the 
lower is not because they are not continuous down- 
wards, but because there is nothing for them there to 
act upon. It is not Law that fails, but opportunity. 
The biological Laws are continuous for life. Wher- 
ever there is life, that is to say, they will be found 
acting, just as gravitation acts wherever there is 
matter. 



60 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

We have purposely, in the last paragraph, indulged 
in a fallacy. We have said that the biological Laws 
would certainly be continuous iu the lower or mineral 
sphere were there anything there for them to act 
upon. Now Laws do not act upon anything. It has 
been stated already, although apparently it cannot 
be too abundantly emphasized, that Laws are only 
modes of operation, not themselves operators. The 
accurate statement, therefore, would be that the 
biological Laws would be continuous in the lower 
sphere were there anything therefor them, not to act 
upon, but to keep in order. If there is no acting 
going on, if there is nothing being kept in order, the 
responsibility does not lie with Continuity. The Law 
will always be at its post, not only when its services 
are required, but wherever they are possible. 

Attention is drawn to this, for it is a correction 
one will find oneself compelled often to make in his 
thinking. It is so difficult to keep out of mind the 
idea of substances in connection with the Natural 
Laws, the idea that they are the movers, the essences, 
the energies, that one is constantly on the verge 
of falling into false conclusions. Thus a hasty 
glance at the present argument on the part of any 
one ill-furnished enough to confound Law with sub- 
stance or with cause would probably lead to its 
immediate rejection. 

For, to continue the same line of illustration, it 
might next be urged that such a Law as Biogenesis, 
which, as we hope to show afterwards, is the funda- 
mental Law of life for both the natural and spiritual 



INTRODUCTION. 61 

worlds, can have no application whatsoever in the 
latter sphere. The life with which it deals in the 
Natural World does not enter at all into the Spiritual 
World, and therefore, it might be argued, the Law of 
Biogenesis cannot be capable of extension into it. 
The Law of Continuity seems to be snapped at the 
point where the natural passes into the spiritual. 
The vital principle of the body is a different thing 
from the vital principle of the spiritual life. Bio- 
genesis deals with #to?, with the natural life, with 
cells and germs, and as there are no exactlv similar 
cells and germs in the Spiritual World, the Law can- 
not therefore apply. All of which is as true as if one 
were to say that the fifth proposition of the first 
Book of Euclid applies when the figures are drawn 
with chalk upon a blackboard, but fails with regard 
to structures of wood or stone. 

The proposition is continuous for the whole world, 
and, doubtless, likewise for the sun and moon and 
stars. The same universality may be predicated 
likewise for the Law of life. Wherever there is life we 
may expect to find it arranged, ordered, governed 
according to the same Law. At the beginning of the 
natural life we find the Law that natural life can only 
come from pre-existing natural life ; and at the be- 
ginning of the spiritual life Ave find that the spiritual 
life can only come from pre-existing spiritual life. 
Bat there are not two Laws ; there is one— Bio- 
genesis. At one end the Law is dealing with matter, 
at the other with spirit. The qualitative terms 
natural and spiritual make no difference. Biogenesis 



62 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

is the Law for all life and for all kinds of life, and 
the particular substance with which it is associated 
is as different to Biogenesis as it is to Gravitation. 
Gravitation will act whether the substance be suns 
and stars, or grains of sand, or raindrops. Biogen- 
esis, in like manner, will act wherever there is life. 

The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of 
Law in general, and from the scope of the Principle 
of Continuity in particular, the Laws of the natural 
life must be those of the spiritual life. This does not 
exclude, observe, the possibility of there being new 
Laws in addition within the Spiritual Sphere ; nor 
does it even include the supposition that the old Laws 
will be the conspicuous Laws of the Spiritual World, 
both which points will be dealt with presently. It 
simply asserts that whatever else may be found, 
these must be found there ; that they must be there 
though they may not be seen there ; and that they 
must project beyond there if there be anything 
beyond there. If the Law of Continuity is true, the 
only way to escape the conclusion that the Laws of 
the natural life are the Laws, or at least are Laws, of 
the spiritual life, is to say that there is no spiritual 
life. It is really easier to give up the phenomena 
than to give up the Law. 

Two questions now remain for further considera- 
tion — one bearing on the possibility of new Law in 
the spiritual; the other, on the assumed invisibility 
or inconspicuousness of the old Laws on account of 
their subordination to the new. 

Let us begin by conceding that there may be new 



INTRODUCTION. 63 

Laws. The argument might then be advanced that 
since, in Nature generally, we come upon new Laws 
as we pass from lower to higher kingdoms, the old 
still remaining in force, the newer Laws which one 
would expect to meet in the Spiritual World would 
so transcend and overwhelm the older as to make the 
analogy or identity, even if traced, of no practical 
use. The new Laws would represent operations and 
energies so different, and so much more elevated, 
that they would afford the true keys to the Spiritual 
World. As Gravitation is practically lost sight of 
when we pass into the domain of life, so Biogenesis 
would be lost sight of as we enter the Spiritual 
Sphere. 

We must first separate in this statement the old 
confusion of Law and energy. Gravitation is not lost 
sight of in the organic world. Gravity may be, to a 
certain extent, but not Gravitation ; and gravity only 
where a higher power counteracts its action. At 
the same time it is not to be denied that the con- 
spicuous thing in Organic Nature is not the great 
Inorganic Law. 

But the objection turns upon the statement that 
reasoning from analogy we should expect, in turn, to 
lose sight of Biogenesis as we enter the Spiritual 
Sphere. One answer to which is that as a matter of 
fact, we do not lose sight of it. So far from being in- 
visible, it lies across the very threshold of the Spiritual 
World, and, as we shall see, pervades it everywhere. 
What we lose sight of, to a certain extent, is the 
natural Bio?. In the Spiritual World that is not the 



64 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

conspicuous thing, and it is obscure there just as 
gravity becomes obscure in the Organic, because 
something higher, more potent, more characteristic of 
the higher plane, comes in. That there are higher 
energies, so to speak, in the Spiritual World is, of 
course, to be affirmed alike on the ground of analogy 
and of experience ; but it does not follow that these 
necessitate other Laws. A Law has nothing to do 
with potency. We may lose sight of a substance, 
or of an energy, but it is an abuse of language to 
talk of losing sight of Laws. 

Are there, then, no other Laws in the Spiritual 
World except those which are the projections or 
extensions of Natural Laws ? From the number of 
Natural Laws which are found in the higher sphere, 
from the large territory actually embraced by them, 
and from their special prominence throughout the 
whole region, it mav at least be answered that the 
margin left for them is small. But if the objection 
is pressed that it is contrary to the analogy, and 
unreasonable in itself, that there should not be new 
Laws for this higher sphere, the reply is obvious. 
Let these Laws be produced. If the spiritual nature, 
in inception, growth, and development, does not 
follow natural principles, let the true principles be 
stated and explained. We have not denied that 
there may be new Laws. One would almost be 
surprised if there were not. The mass of material 
handed over from the natural to the spiritual, con- 
tinuous, apparently, from the natural to the spiritual, 
is so great that till that is worked out it will be im- 



INTRODUCTION. 65 

possible to say what space is still left unembraced 
by Laws that are known. At present it is impossible 
even approximately to estimate the size of that sup- 
posed terra incognita. From one point of view it 
ought to be vast, from another extremely small. 
But however large the region governed by the sus- 
pected new Laws may be, that cannot diminish by a 
hair's- breadth the size of the territory where the old 
Laws still prevail. That territory itself, relatively 
to us though perhaps not absolutely, must be of 
great extent. The size of the key which is to open 
it, that is, the size of all the Natural Law T s which 
can be found to apply, is a guarantee that the region 
of the knowable in the Spiritual World is at least as 
wide as these regions of the Natural World which 
by the help of these Laws have been explored. No 
doubt also there vet remain some Natural Laws 
to be discovered, and these in time may have 
a further light to shed on the spiritual field. Then 
we may know all that is ? By no means. We may 
only know all that may be known. And that may 
be very little. The Sovereign Will which sways 
the sceptre of that invisible empire must be granted 
a right of freedom — that freedom which by putting 
it into our wills He surely teaches us to honor in 
His. In much of His dealing with us also, in w T hat 
may be called the paternal relation, there may seem 
no special Law — no Law except the highest of all, 
that Law of which all other Law r s are parts, that 
Law which neither Nature can wholly reflect nor 
the mind begin to fathom — the Law of Love. He 
5 



$6 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

adds nothing to that, however, who loses sight of all 
other Laws in that, nor does he take from it who 
finds specific Laws everywhere radiating from it. 

With regard to the supposed new Laws of the 
Spiritual World — those Laws, that is, which are found 
for the first time in the Spiritual World, and have 
no analogies lower down — there is this to be said, 
that there is one strong reason against exaggerating 
either their number or importance — their importance 
at least for our immediate needs. The connection 
between language and the Law of Continuity has 
been referred to incidentally already. It is clear 
that we can only express the Spiritual Laws in lan- 
guage borrowed from the visible universe. Being 
dependent for our vocabulary on images, if an al- 
together new and foreign set of Laws existed in the 
Spiritual World, they could never take shape as defi- 
nite ideas from mere want of words. The hypo- 
thetical new Laws which may remain to be discov- 
ered in the domain of Natural or Mental Science 
may afford some index of these hypothetical higher 
Laws, but this would of course mean that the latter 
were no longer foreign but in analogy, or, likelier 
still, identical. If, on the other hand, the Natural 
Law^s of the future have nothing to say of these 
higher Laws, what can be said of them ? Where is 
the language to come from in which to frame them ? 
If their disclosure could be of any practical use to 
us, we may be sure the clue to them, the revelation 
of them, in some way would have been put into 
Nature. If, on the contrary, they are not to be of 



INTRODUCTION. 67 

immediate use to man, it is better they should not 
embarrass him. After all, then, our knowledge of 
higher Law must be limited by our knowledge of the 
lower. The Natural Laws as at present known, 
whatever additions may yet be made to them, give 
a fair rendering of the facts of Nature. And their 
analogies or their projections in the Spiritual sphere 
may also be said to offer a fair account of that 
sphere, or of one or two conspicuous departments of 
it. The time has come for that account to be given. 
The greatest among the theological Laws are the 
Laws of Nature in disguise. It will be the splendid 
task of the theology of the future to take off the 
mask and disclose to a waning scepticism the nat- 
uralness of the supernatural. 

It is almost singular that the identification of the 
Laws of the Spiritual World with the Laws of Na- 
ture should so long have escaped recognition. For 
apart from the probability on d priori grounds it is 
involved in the whole structure of Parable. "When 
any two Phenomena in the two spheres are seen to 
be analogous, the parallelism must depend upon the 
fact that the Laws governing them are not analogous 
but identical. And yet this basis for Parable seems 
to have been overlooked. Thus Principal Shairp : — 
" This seeing of Spiritual truths mirrored in the face 
of Nature rests not on any fancied, but in a real 
analogy between the natural and the spiritual worlds. 
They are in some sense which science has not ascer- 
tained, but which the vital and religious imagination 
can perceive, counterparts one of the other." * But 
* " Poetic Interpretation of Nature," p. 115. 



03 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

is not this the explanation, that parallel Phenomena 
depend upon identical Laws? It is a question in- 
deed whether one can speak of Laws at all as being 
analogous. Phenomena are parallel, Laws which 
make them so are themselves one. 

In discussing the relations of the Natural and Spir- 
itual kingdom, it has been all but implied hitherto 
that the Spiritual Laws were framed originally on 
the plan of the Natural ; and the impression one 
might receive in studying the two worlds for the first 
time from the side of analogy would naturally be 
that the lower world was formed first, as a kind of 
scaffolding on which the higher and Spiritual should 
be afterwards raised. Now the exact opposite has 
been the case. The first in the field was the Spiritual 
World. 

It is not necessary to reproduce here in detail the 
argument which has been stated recently with so 
much force in the " Unseen Universe." The conclu- 
sion of that work remains still unassailed, that the 
visible universe has been developed from the unseen. 
Apart from the general proof from the Law of Con- 
tinuity, the more special grounds of such a conclusion 
are, first, the fact insisted upon by Herschel and 
Clerk-Maxw T ell that the atoms of which the visible 
universe is built up bear distinct marks of being 
manufactured articles ; and, secondly, the origin in 
time of the visible universe is implied from known 
facts with regard to the dissipation of energy. With 
the gradual aggregation of mass the energy of the 
universe has been slowly disappearing, and this loss 



INTRODUCTION. 69 

of energy must go on until none remains. There is, 
therefore, a point in time when the energy of the 
universe must come to an end ; and that which has 
its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have 
had a beginning in time. Hence the unseen existed 
before the seen. 

There is nothing so especially exalted therefore 
in the Natural Laws in themselves as to make one 
anxious to find them blood relations of the Spiritual. 
It is not only because these Laws are on the ground, 
more accessible therefore to us who are but ground- 
lings; not only, as the "Unseen Universe" points 
out in another connection, " because they are at the 
bottom of the list — are in fact the simplest and 
lowest — that they are capable of being most readily 
grasped by the finite intelligences of the universe." * 
But their true significance lies in the fact that they 
are on the list at all, and especially in that the list is 
the same list. Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, 
but as Spiritual Laws, Laws which, as already said, 
at one end are dealing with Matter, and at the other 
with Spirit. " The physical properties of matter form 
the alphabet which is put into our hands by God, the 
study of which, if properly conducted, will enable 
us more perfectly to read that great book which we 
call the ' Universe.' " f But, over and above this, the 
Natural Laws will enable us to read that great dupli- 
cate which we call the " Unseen Universe," and to 
think and live in fuller harmony with it. After all, 
the true greatness of Law lies in its vision of the 
* Cth edition, p. 235. f Ibid., p. 



70 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Unseen. Law in the visible is the Invisible in the 
visible. And to speak of Laws as Natural is to 
define them in their application to a part of the 
universe, the sense-part, whereas a wider survey 
would lead us to regard all Law as essentially 
Spiritual. To magnify the Laws of Nature, as Laws 
of this small world of ours, is to take a provincial 
view of the universe. Law is great not because the 
phenomenal world is great, but because these vanish- 
ing lines are the avenues into the eternal Order. 

" Is it less reverent to regard the universe as an 
illimitable avenue which leads up to God, than to 
look upon it as a limited area bounded by an im- 
penetrable wall, which, if we could only pierce it, 
would admit us at once into the presence of the 
Eternal ? " * Indeed the authors of the " L^nseen Uni- 
verse " demur even to the expression material uni- 
verse, since, as they tell us " Matter is (though it may 
seem paradoxical to say so) the less important half 
of the material of the physical universe." f And 
even Mr. Iluxlev, though in a different sense, assures 
us, with Descartes, "that we know more of mind 
than we do of body ; that the immaterial world is 
a firmer reality than the material.'' \ 

How the priority of the Spiritual improves the 
strength and meaning of the whole argument will be 
seen at once. The lines of the Spiritual existed first, 
and it was natural to expect that when the "Intelli- 
gence resident in the ' Unseen ' " proceeded to frame 

* " Unseen Universe," p. 96. f Ibid., p. 100. 

% " Science and Culture," p. 259, 



INTRODUCTION. 71 

the material universe He should go upon the lines 
already laid down. He would, in short, simply pro- 
ject the higher Laws downward, so that the Natural 
World would become an incarnation, a visible repre- 
sentation, a working model of the spiritual. The 
whole function of the material world lies here. The 
world is only a thing that is; it is not. It is a 
thing that teaches, yet not even a thing — a show 
that shows, a teaching shadow. However useless 
the demonstration otherwise, philosophy does well in 
proving that matter is a non-en tity. We work with 
it as the mathematician with an x. The reality is 
alone the Spiritual. " It is very well for physicists 
to speak of ' matter,' but for men generally to call 
this 'a material world' is an absurdity. Should we 
call it an a?- world it would mean as much, viz., that 
we do not know what it is." * When shall we learn 
the true mysticism of one who was yet far from 
being a mystic — " We look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; 
for the things which are seen are temporal, but the 
things which are not seen are eternal ? " f The vis- 
ible is the ladder up to the invisible ; the temporal is 
but the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the last 
immaterial souls have climbed through this material 
to God, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and the 
earth dissolved with fervent heat — not because it was 
base, but because its work is done. 

*Hinton's " Philosophy and Religion," p. 40. 
|Cor. iv. 18. 



BIOGENESIS. 



" What we require is no new Revelation, but simply 
an adequate conception of the true essence of Chris- 
tianity. And I believe that, as time goes on, the work 
of the Holy Spirit will be continuously shown in the 
gradual insight which the human race will attain into 
the true essence of the Christian religion. I am thus of 
opinion that a standing miracle exists, and that it has 
ever existed — a direct and continued influence exerted by 
the supernatural on the natural" 

Paradoxical Philosophy. 



BIOGENESIS. 

" He that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the 
Son of God hath not Life." — John. 
" Omne vivum ex vivo." — Harvey. 

For two hundred years the scientific world has 
been rent with discussions upon the Origin of Life. 
Two great schools have defended exactly opposite 
views — one that matter can spontaneously generate 
life, the other that life can only come from pre-exist- 
ing life. The doctrine of Spontaneous Generation, 
as the first is called, has been revived within recent 
years by Dr. Bastian, after a series of elaborate ex- 
periments on the Beginnings of Life. Stated in his 
own words, his conclusion is this : " Both observation 
and experiment unmistakably testify to the fact 
that living matter is constantly being formed de novo, 
in obedience to the same laws and tendencies which 
determine all the more simple chemical combina- 
tions." * Life, that is to say, is not the Gift of Life. 
It is capable of springing into being of itself. It 
can be Spontaneously Generated. 

This announcement called into the field a phalanx 

*" Beginnings of Life." By H. C. Bastian, M. A., M.D., 
F.R.S. Macmillan, vol. ii., p. 633. 

75 



76 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

of observers, and the highest authorities in bio- 
logical science engaged themselves afresh upon the 
problem. The experiments necessary to test the 
matter can be followed or repeated by any one pos- 
sessing the slightest manipulative skill. Glass vessels 
are three-parts filled with infusions of hay or any 
organic matter. They are boiled to kill all germs 
of life, and hermetically sealed to exclude the outer 
air. The air inside, having been exposed to the 
boiling temperature for many hours, is supposed to 
be likewise dead ; so that any life which may sub- 
sequently appear in the closed flasks must have 
sprung into being of itself. In Bastian's experiments 
after every expedient to secure sterility, life did 
appear inside in myriad quantity. Therefore, he 
argued, it was spontaneously generated. 

But the phalanx of observers found two errors 
in this calculation. Professor Tyndall repeated the 
same experiment, only with a precaution to ensure 
absolute sterility suggested by the most recent 
science — a discovery of his own. After every care, 
he conceived there might still be undestroyed germs 
in the air inside the flasks. If the air were abso- 
lutely germless and pure, would the myriad life 
appear? He manipulated his experimental vessels 
in an atmosphere which under the high test of 
optical purity — the most delicate known test — was 
absolutely germless. Here not a vestige of life 
appeared. He varied the experiment in every direc- 
tion, but matter in the germless air never yielded 
life. 



BIOGENESIS. 77 

The other error was detected by Mr. Dallinger. 
He found among the lower forms of life the most 
surprising and indestructible vitality. Many animals 
could survive much higher temperatures than Dr. 
Bastian had applied to annihilate them. Some 
germs almost refused to be annihilated — they were 
all but fire-proof. 

These experiments have practically closed the 
question. A decided and authoritative conclusion 
has now taken its place in science. So far as science 
can settle anything, this question is settled. The at- 
tempt to get the living out of the dead has failed. 
Spontaneous Generation has had to be given up. 
And it is now recognized on every hand that Life 
can only come from the touch of Life. Huxley cat- 
egorically announces that the doctrine of Biogenesis, 
or life only from life, is " victorious along the whole 
line at the present day." * And even whilst confess- 
ing that he wishes the evidence were the other way, 
Tyndall is compelled to say, " I affirm that no shred 
of trustworthy experimental testimony exists to 
prove that life in our day has ever appeared indepen- 
dently of antecedent life." f 

For much more than two hundred years a similar 
discussion has dragged its length through the relig- 
ious world. Two great schools here also have de- 
fended exactly opposite views — one that the Spiritual 
Life in man can only come from pre-existing Life, 
the other that it can Spontaneously Generate itself. 

* " Critiques and Addresses." T. H. Huxley, F.R.S., p. 239. 
\ Nineteenth Century , 1878, p. 507. 



Y8 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Taking its stand upon the initial statement of the 
Author of the Spiritual Life, one small school, in the 
face of derision and opposition, has persistently 
maintained the doctrine of Biogenesis. Another, 
larger and with greater pretension to philosophic 
form, has defended Spontaneous Generation. The 
weakness of the former school consists — though this 
has been much exaggerated — in its more or less 
general adherence to the extreme view that religion 
had nothing to do with the natural life ; the weak- 
ness of the latter lay in yielding to the more fatal 
extreme that it had nothing to do with anything 
else. That man, being a worshipping animal by 
nature, ought to maintain certain relations to the 
Supreme Being, was indeed to some extent conceded 
by the naturalistic school, but religion itself was 
looked upon as a thing to be spontaneously gener- 
ated by the evolution of character in the laboratory 
of common life. 

The difference between the two positions is radi- 
cal. Translating from the language of Science into 
that of Religion, the theory of Spontaneous Gener- 
ation is simply that a man may become gradually 
better and better until in course of the process he 
reaches that quality of religious nature known as 
Spiritual Law. This Life is not something added 
db extra to the natural man ; it is the normal and 
appropriate development of the natural man. Bio- 
genesis opposes to this the whole doctrine of Re- 
generation. The Spiritual Life is the gift of the 
Living Spirit. The spiritual man is no mere develop- 



\ BIOGENESIS. 79 

\ 

ment of the natural man. He is a New Creation 
bora from Above. As well expect a hay infusion to 
become gradually more and more living until in 
course of the process it reached Vitality, as expect ; 
a man by becoming better and better to attain the 
Eternal Life. 

The advocates of Biogenesis in Religion have 
founded their argument hitherto all but exclusively 
on Scripture. The relation of the doctrine to the 
constitution and course of Nature was not disclosed. 
Its importance, therefore, was solely as a dogma ; 
and being directly concerned with the Supernatural, 
it was valid for those alone who chose to accept the 
Supernatural. 

Yet it has been keenly felt by those who attempt 
to defend this doctrine of the origin of the Spiritual 
Life, that they have nothing more to oppose to the 
rationalistic view than the ipse dixit of Revelation. 
The argument from experience, in the nature of the 
case, is seldom easy to apply, and Christianity has 
always found at this point a genuine difficulty in 
meeting the challenge of Natural Religions. The 
direct authoritv of Nature, using Nature in its liin- 
ited sense, was not here to be sought for. On such 
a question its voice was necessarily silent ; and all 
that the apologist could look for lower down was a 
distant echo or analogy. All that is really possible, 
indeed, is such an analogy ; and if that can now be 
found in Biogenesis, Christianity in its most central 
position secures at length a support and basis in the 
Laws of Nature. 



SO NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Up to the present time the analogy required lias 
not been forthcoming. There was no known parallel 
in Mature for the spiritual phenomena in question. 
But now the case is altered. "With the elevation of 
Biogenesis to the rank of a scientific fact, all prob- 
lems concerning the Origin of Life are placed on 
a different footing. And it remains to be seen 
whether Religion cannot at once re-affirm and re- 
shape its argument in the light of this modern 
truth. 

If the doctrine of the Spontaneous Generation of 
Spiritual Life can be met on scientific grounds, it 
will mean the removal of the most serious enemy 
Christianity has to deal with, and especially within 
its own borders, at the present day. The religion 
of Jesus has probably always suffered more from 
those who have misunderstood than from those who 
have opposed it. Of the multitudes who confess 
Christianity at this hour how many have clear in 
their minds the cardinal distinction established bv 
its Founder between " born of the flesh " and " born 
of the Spirit"? By how many teachers of Chris- 
tianity even is not this fundamental postulate per- 
sistently ignored ? A thousand modern pulpits every 
seventh day are preaching the doctrine of Spon- 
taneous Generation. The finest and best of recent 
poetry is colored with this same error. Spontaneous 
Generation is the leading theology of the modern 
religious or irreligious novel ; and much of the 
most serious and cultured writing of the day devotes 
itself to earnest preaching of this impossible gospel. 



BIOGENESIS. 81 

The current conception of the Christian religion in 
short — the conception which is held not only popu- 
larly but by men of culture — is founded upon a view 
of its origin which, if it were true, would render the 
whole scheme abortive. 

Let us first place vividly in our imagination the 
picture of the two great Kingdoms of Nature, the 
inorganic and organic, as these now stand in the 
light of the Law of Biogenesis. What essentially 
is involved in saying that there is no Spontaneous 
Generation of Life ? It is meant that the passage 
from the mineral world to the plant or animal world 
is hermetically sealed on the mineral side. This in- 
organic world is staked off from the living world by 
barriers which have never vet been crossed from 
within. ISTo change of substance, no modification of 
environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor any 
form of energy, nor any evolution can endow any 
single atom of the mineral world with the attribute 
of Life. Only by the bending down into this 
dead world of some living form can these dead 
atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality, with- 
out this preliminary contact with Life they remain 
fixed in the inorganic sphere forever. It is a very 
mysterious Law which guards in this way the portals 
of the living world. And if there is one thing in 
Nature more worth pondering for its strangeness it 
is the spectacle of this vast helpless world of the 
dead cut off from the living by the Law of Bio- 
genesis and denied forever the possibility of resur- 
rection within itself. So very strange a thing, in- 



82 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

deed, is this broad line in Nature, that Science has 
long and urgently sought to obliterate it. Bio- 
genesis stands in the way of some forms of Evolution 
with such stern persistency that the assaults upon 
this Law for number and thoroughness have been 
unparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the 
test. Nature, to the modern eye, stands broken in 
two. The physical Laws may explain the inorganic 
world ; the biological Laws may account for the de- 
velopment of the organic. But of the point where 
they meet, of that strange borderland between the 
dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if God 
had placed everything in earth and heaven in the 
hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the genesis 
of Life for His direct appearing. 

The power of the analogy, for which we are laying 
the foundations, to seize and impress the mind, will 
largely depend on the vividness with which one 
realizes the gulf which Nature places between the 
living and the dead.* But those who, in contemplat- 

* This being the crucial point it may not be inappropriate to 
supplement the quotations already given in the text with the 
following : — 

" We are in the presence of the one incommunicable gulf— 
the gulf of all gulfs — that gulf which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm 
is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that 
has ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked 
into it — the mighty gulf between death and life." — " As Re- 
gards Protoplasm." By J. Hutchinson Sterling, LL.D., p. 42. 

" The present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link 
between the living and the not-living." — Huxley, "Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica " (new Ed.) Art. " Biology." 

" Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the 



BIOGENESIS. 83 

ing Nature, have found their attention arrested by 
this extraordinary dividing-line severing the visible 
universe eternally into two ; those who in watching 
the progress of science have seen barrier after barrier 
disappear — barrier between plant and plant, between 
animal and animal, and even between animal and 
plant — but this gulf yawn more hopelessly wide with 
every advance of knowledge, will be prepared to 
attach a significance to the Law of Biogenesis and 
its analogies more profound porhaps than to any 
other fact or law in Nature. If, as Pascal says, 
Nature is an image of grace ; if the things that are 
seen are in any sense the images of the unseen, there 
must lie in this great gulf fixed, this most unique 
and startling of all natural phenomena, a meaning of 
peculiar moment. 

Where now in the Spiritual spheres shall v we meet 
a companion phenomenon to this ? What in the 
Unseen shall be likened to this deep dividing-line, 
or where in human experience is another barrier 
which never can be crossed ? 

There is such a barrier. In the dim but not 
inadequate vision of the Spiritual World presented 

attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for 
the generatio cequivoca in the lower forms of transition from 
the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious 
to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in 
any way accepted as the basis of all our views of life." — 
Virchow : *'The Freedom of Science in the Modern State." 
" All really scientific experience tells us that life can be 
produced from a living antecedent only." — "The Unseen 
Universe," 6th Ed. p. 229. 



84 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

in the Word of God, the first thing that strikes 
the eve is a great gulf fixed. The passage from 
the Natural World to the Spiritual World is hermet- 
ically sealed on the natural side. The door from 
the inorganic to the organic is shut, no mineral 
can open it ; so the door from the natural to the 
spiritual is shut, and no man can open it. This 
world of natural men is staked off from the Spiritual 
World by barriers which have never yet been crossed 
from within. No organic change, no modification 
of environment, no mental energy, no moral effort, 
no evolution of character, no progress of civilization 
can endow any single human soul with the attribute 
of Spiritual Life. The Spiritual World is guarded 
from the world next in order beneath it by a law 
of Biogenesis — except a man he horn again . . . 
except a man he horn of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 

It is not said in this enunciation of the law, that 
if the condition be not fulfilled the natural man 
will not enter the Kingdom of God. The world is 
cannot. For the exclusion of the spiritually inor- 
ganic from the Kingdom of the spiritually organic 
is not arbitrary. Nor is the natural man refused 
admission on unexplained grounds. His admission 
is a scientific impossibility. Except a mineral be 
born "from above" — from the kingdom just above 
it — it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. 
And except a man be born " from above," by the 
same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just above 
him. There being no passage from one Kingdom to 



BIOGENESIS. 85 

another, whether from inorganic to organic, or from 
organic to spiritual, the intervention of Life is a 
scientific necessity if a stone or a plant or an animal 
or a man is to pass from a lower to a higher sphere. 
The plant stretches down to the dead world beneath 
it, touches its minerals and gases with its mystery 
of Life, and brings them up ennobled and trans- 
formed to the living sphere. The breath of God, 
blowing where it listeth, touches with its mystery 
of Life the dead souls of men, bears them across 
the bridgeless gulf between the natural and the 
spiritual, between the spiritually inorganic and the 
spiritually organic, endows them with its own high 
qualities, and develops within them these new and 
secret faculties, by which, those who are born again 
are said to see the Kingdom of God. 

What is the evidence for this great gulf fixed at 
the portals of the Spiritual World ? Does Science 
close this gate, or Reason, or Experience, or Rev- 
elation ? We reply, all four. The initial statement, 
it is not to be denied, reaches us from Revelation. 
But is not this evidence here in court % Or shall it 
be said that any argument deduced from this is a 
transparent circle — that after all we simply come 
back to the unsubstantiality of the ipse dixit ? Not 
altogether, for the analogy lends an altogether new 
authority to the ipse dixit. How substantial that 
argument really is, is seldom realized. We yield 
the point here much too easily. The right of the 
Spiritual World to speak of its own phenomena 
is as secure as the right of the Natural World to 



86 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

speak of itself. What is Science but what the 
Natural World .has said to natural men ? What is 
Revelation but what the Spiritual World has said 
to Spiritual men? Let us at least ask what Reve- 
lation has announced with reference to the Spiritual 
Law of Biogenesis ; afterwards we shall inquire 
whether Science, while endorsing the verdict, may 
not also have some further vindication of its title to 
be heard. 

The words of Scripture which preface this inquiry 
contain an explicit and original statement of the 
Law of Biogenesis for the Spiritual Life. " He 
that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not 
the Son of God hath not Life." Life, that is to say, 
depends upon contact with Life. It cannot spring 
up of itself. It cannot develop out of anything 
that is not Life. There is no Spontaneous 
Generation in religion any more than in Nature. 
Christ is the source of Life in the Spiritual World ; 
and he that hath the Son hath Life, and he that 
hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, hath 
not Life. Here, in short, is the categorical denial 
of A biogenesis and the establishment in this high 
field of the classical formula Orune vivum ex vivo — 
no Life without antecedent Life. In this mystical 
theory of the Origin of Life the whole of the New 
Testament writers are agreed. And, as we have 
already seen, Christ Himself founds Christianity 
upon Biogenesis stated in its most literal form. 
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit 
he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That 



BIOGENESIS. 87 

which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which 
is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that 
I said unto you, ye must be born again." * Why 
did He add Marvel not? Did He seek to allay 
the fear in the bewildered ruler's mind that there 
was more in this novel doctrine than a simple 
analogy from the first to the second birth ? 

The attitude of the natural man, again, with 
reference to the Spiritual, is a subject on which the 
New Testament is equally pronounced. Not only 
in his relation to the spiritual man, but to the 
whole Spiritual "World, the natural man is regarded 
as dead. He is as a crystal to an organism. The 
natural world is to the Spiritual as the inorganic 
to the organic. " To be carnally minded is Death. " f 
" Thou hast a name to live, but art Dead" % " She 
that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she liveth."§ 
" To you hath He given Life which, were Dead in 
trespasses and sins." || 

It is clear that a remarkable harmony exists 
here between the Organic World as arranged by 
Science and the Spiritual World as arranged by 
Scripture. We find one great Law guarding the 
thresholds of both worlds, securing that entrance 
from a lower sphere shall only take place by a 
direct regenerating act, and that emanating from 
the world next in order above. There are not two 
laws of Biogenesis, one for the natural, the other 
for the Spiritual ; one law is for both. Wherever 

* John iii. f Rom. viii. 6. \ Rev. iii. 1. § 1 Tim. v. 6. 
\ Eph. ii. 1., 5. 



88 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

there is Life, Life of any kind, this same law holds. 
The analogy, therefore, is only among the phe- 
nomena ; between laws there is no analogy — there 
is Continuity. In either case, the first step in 
peopling these worlds with the appropriate living 
forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there 
less of mystery in the act than in the other. The 
second birth is scarcely less perplexing to the theo- 
logian than the first to the embryologist. 

A moment's reflection ought now to make it clear 
why in the Spiritual World there had to be added 
to this mystery the further mystery of its proclama- 
tion through the medium of Revelation. This is the 
point at which the scientific man is apt to part 
company with the theologian. He insists on having 
all things materialized before his eyes in Nature. 
If Nature cannot discuss this with him, there is 
nothing to discuss. But Nature can discuss this 
with him — only she cannot open the discussion or 
supply all the material to begin with. If Science 
averred that she could do this, the theologian this 
time must part company with such Science. For 
any Science which makes such a demand is false to 
the doctrines of Biogenesis. What is this but the 
demand that a lower world, hermetically sealed 
against all communication with a world above it, 
should have a mature and intelligent acquaintance 
with its phenomena and laws ? Can the mineral 
discourse to me of animal Life \ Can it tell me 
what lies bevond the narrow boundary of its inert 
being ? Knowing nothing of other than the chemical 



BIOGENESIS. 89 

and physical laws, what is its criticism worth of the 
principles of Biology ? And even when some visitor 
from the upper world, for example some root from 
a living tree, penetrating its dark recess, honors 
it with a touch, will it presume to define the form 
and purpose of its patron, or until the bioplasm has 
done its gracious work can it even know that it is 
being touched ? The barrier which separates King- 
doms from one another restricts mind not less than 
matter. Any information of the Kingdoms above 
it that could come to the mineral world could only 
come by a communication from above. An analogy 
from the lower world might make such communi- 
cation intelligible as well as credible, but the infor- 
mation in the first instance must be vouchsafed as 
a revelation. Similarly if those in the Organic- 
Kingdom are to know anything of the Spiritual 
World, that knowledge must at least begin as Rev- 
elation. Men who reject this source of information, 
by the Law of Biogenesis, can have no other. It 
is no spell of ignorance arbitrarily laid upon certain 
members of the Organic Kingdom that prevents 
them reading the secrets of the Spiritual World. 
It is a scientific necessity. No exposition of the 
case could be more truly scientific than this : " The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God ; for they are foolishness unto him : neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned.'' * The verb here, it will be again observed, 
is potential. This is not a dogma of theology, 

*lCor. ii. 14. 



90 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

but a necessity of Science. And Science, for the 
most part, has consistently accepted the situation. 
It has always proclaimed its ignorance of the 
Spiritual World. When Mr. Herbert Spencer 
affirms, " Regarding Science as a gradually increas- 
ing sphere we may say that every addition to its 
surface does but bring it into wider contact with 
surrounding nescience,"* from his standpoint he 
is quite correct. The endeavors of well-meaning 
persons to show that the Agnostic's position, when 
he asserts his ignorance of the Spiritual World, is 
only a pretence ; the attempts to prove that he 
really knows a great deal about it if he would only 
admit it, are quite misplaced. He really does not 
know. The verdict that the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God, that they are 
foolishness unto him, that neither can he know them, 
is final as a statement of scientific truth — a statement 
on which the entire Agnostic literature is simply 
one long cornmentarv. 

We are now in a better position to follow out the 
more practical bearings of Biogenesis. There is an 
immense region surrounding Regeneration, a dark 
and perplexing region where men would be thank- 
ful for any light. It may well be that Biogenesis 
in its many ramifications may yet reach down to 
some of the deeper mysteries of the Spiritual Life. 
But meantime there is much to define even on the 
surface. And for the present we shall content 

* " First Principles," 2d Ed., p. 17. 



BIOGENESIS. 91 

ourselves by turning its light upon one or two 
points of current interest. 

It must long ago have appeared how decisive 
is the answer of Science to the practical question 
with which we set out as to the possibility of 
a Spontaneous Development of Spiritual Life in 
the individual soul. The inquiry into the Origin 
of Life is the fundamental question alike of Biology 
and Christianity. We can afford to enlarge upon 
it, therefore, even at the risk of repetition. When 
men are offering us a Christianity without a living 
Spirit, and a personal religion without conversion, no 
emphasis or reiteration can be extreme. Besides, 
the clearness as well as the definiteness of the 
Testimony of Nature to any Spiritual truth is of 
immense importance. Regeneration has not merely 
been an outstanding difficulty, but an overwhelming 
obscurity. Even to earnest minds the difficulty of 
grasping the truth at all has always proved extreme. 
Philosophically one scarcely sees either the necessity 
or the possibility of being born again. Why a vir- 
tuous man should not simply grow better and better 
until in his own right he enter the Kingdom of God 
is what thousands honestly and sincerely fail to 
understand. JSTow Philosophy cannot help us here. 
Her arguments are, if anything, against us. But 
Science answers to the appeal at once. Is it be 
simply pointed out that this is the same absurdity 
as to ask why a stone should not grow more and 
more living till it enters the Organic World, the point 
is clear in an instant. 



92 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

What now, let us ask specifically, distinguishes 
a Christian man from a non-Christian man ? Is it 
that he has certain mental characteristics not pos- 
sessed by the other ? Is it that certain faculties 
have been trained in him, that morality assumes 
special and higher manifestations, and character 
a nobler form \ Is the Christian merely an ordinary 
man who happens from birth to have been sur- 
rounded with a peculiar set of ideas ? Is his religion 
merely that peculiar quality of the moral life defined 
by Mr. Matthew Arnold as " morality touched b}^ 
emotion" ? And does the possession of a high ideal, 
benevolent sympathies, a reverent spirit, and a 
favorable environment account for what men call 
his Spiritual Life ? 

The distinction between them, is the same as that 
between the Organic and the Inorganic, the living 
and the dead. What is the difference between 
a crystal and an organism, a stone and a plant ? 
They have much in common. Both are made of the 
same atoms. Both display the same properties of 
matter. Both are subject to the Physical Laws. 
Both may be very beautiful. But besides possessing 
all that the crystal has, the plant possesses something 
more — a mysterious something called Life. This 
Life is not something which existed in the crystal 
only in a less developed form. There is nothing 
at all like it in the crystal. There is nothing like 
the first beginning of it in the crystal, not a trace 
or symptom of it. This plant is tenanted by some- 
thing new, an original and unique possession added 



BIOGENESIS. 93 

over and above all the properties common to both. 
When from vegetable Life we rise to animal Life, 
here again we find something original and unique — 
unique at least as compared with the mineral. 
From animal Life we ascend again to Spiritual Life. 
And here also is something new, something still 
more unique. He who lives the Spiritual Life has 
a distinct kind of Life added to all the other phases 
of Life which he manifests — a kind of Life infinitely 
more distinct than is the active Life of a plant 
from the inertia of a stone. The Spiritual man is 
more distinct in point of fact than is the plant from 
the stone. This is the one possible comparison in 
Nature, for it is the wildest distinction in Nature ; 
but compared with the difference between the 
Natural and the Spiritual the gulf which divides 
the organic from the inorganic is a hair's-breadth. 
The natural man belongs essentially to this present 
order of things. He is endowed simply with a high 
quality of the natural animal Life. But it is Life 
of so poor a quality that it is not Life at all. He 
that hath not the Son hath not Life / but he that 
hath the Son hath Life— a new and distinct and 
supernatural endowment. He is not of this world. 
He is of the timeless state, of Eternity. It doth not 
yet appear what he shall be. 

The difference then between the Spiritual man and 
the Natural man is not a difference of development, 
but of generation. It is a distinction of quality not 
of quantity. A man cannot rise by any natural 
development from " morality touched by emotion," 



94 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

to " morality touched by Life." Were we to con- 
struct a scientific classification, Science would compel 
us to arrange all natural . men, moral or immoral, 
educated or vulgar, as one family. One might be 
high in the family group, another low ; yet, practi- 
cally, they are marked by the same set of character- 
istics — they eat, sleep, work, think, live, die. But 
the Spiritual man is removed from his family so 
utterly by the possession of an additional character- 
istic that a biologist, fully informed of the whole 
circumstances, would not hesitate a moment to 
classify him elsewhere. And if he really entered 
into these circumstances it would not be in another 
family but in another Kingdom. It is an old- 
fashioned theology which divides the world in this 
way — which speaks of men as Living and Dead, 
Lost and Saved — a stern theology all but fallen into 
disuse. This difference between the Living and the 
Dead in souls is so unproved by casual observation, 
so impalpable in itself, so startling as a doctrine, 
that schools of culture have ridiculed or denied the 
grim distinction. Nevertheless the grim distinction 
must be retained. It is a scientific distinction. " He 
that hath not the Son hath not Life." 

Now it is this great Law which finally distinguishes 
Christianity from all other religions. It places the 
religion of Christ upon a footing altogether unique. 

There is no analogy between the Christian religion 
and, say, Buddhism or the Mohammedan religion. 
There is no true sense in which a man can say, He 



BIOGENESIS. 95 

that hath Buddha hath Life. Buddha has nothing- 
to do with Life. He may have something to do 
with morality. He may stimulate, impress, teach, 
guide, but there is no distinct new thing added to 
the souls of those who profess Buddhism. These 
religions may be developments of the natural, men- 
tal, or moral man. But Christianity professes to be 
more. It is the mental or moral m&n plus something 
else or some One else. It is the infusion into the 
Spiritual man of a New Life, of a quality unlike 
anything else in Nature. This constitutes the sepa- 
rate Kingdom of Christ, and gives to Christianity 
alone of all the religions of mankind the strange 
mark of Divinity. 

Shall we next inquire more precisely what is this 
something 6xtra which constitutes Spiritual Life? 
What is this strange and new endowment in its 
nature and vital essence ? And the answer is brief — 
it is Christ. He that hath the Son hath Life. 

Are we forsaking the lines of Science in saying 
so ? Yes and No. Science has drawn for us the 
distinction. It has no voice as to the nature of the 
distinction except this- — that the new endowment is 
a something different from any thing else with which 
it deals. It is not ordinary Vitality, it is not intel- 
lectual, it is not moral, but something beyond. And 
Revelation steps in and names what it is — it is Christ. 
Out of the multitude of sentences where this an- 
nouncement is made, these few may be selected : 
" Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ 



96 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

is hi you f " * " Your bodies are the members of 
Christ." f " At that day ye shall know that I am in 
the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." $ tC We 
will come unto him and make our abode with him." § 
" I am the Vine, ye are the branches." | " I am 
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me." T 

Three things are clear from these statements. 
First, They are not mere figures of rhetoric. They 
are explicit declarations. If language means any- 
thing these words announce a literal fact. In some 
of Christ's own statements the literalism is if possible 
still more impressive. For instance, "Except ye eat 
the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye 
have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and 
drinketh My blood hath eternal life ; and I will raise 
him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, 
and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and Tin 
him." 

In the second place, Spiritual Life is not some- 
thing outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ 
is in heaven and that we can stretch out some 
mysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This 
is the vague form in which many conceive the truth, 
but it is contrary to Christ's teaching and to the 
analogy of nature. Yege table Life is not contained 
in a reservoir somewhere in the skies, and measured 
out spasmodically at certain seasons. The Life is in 

*2 Cor. xii. 5. f 1 Cor. Vi. 15. % John xiv. 10. 

SJohnxiv. 21-23. flJohnxv. 4. If Gal. ii. 20. 



BIOGENESIS. 97 

every plant and tree, inside its own substance and 
tissues, and continues there until it dies. This locali- 
zation of Life in the individual is precisely the point 
where Vitality differs from the other forces of nature, 
such as magnetism and electricity. Vitality has 
much in common wiuh such forces as magnetism 
and electricity, but there is one inviolable distinction 
between them — that Life is permanently fixed and 
rooted in the organism. The doctrines of conserva- 
tion and transformation of energy, that is to say, do 
not hold for Vitality. The electrician can demag- 
netize a bar of iron, that is, he can transform its 
energy of magnetism into something else — heat, or 
motion, or light — and then re-form these back into 
magnetism. For magnetism has no root, no indi- 
viduality, no fixed indwelling. But the biologist 
cannot devitalize a plant or an animal and revivify 
it again.* Life is not one of the homeless forces 
which promiscuously inhabit space, or which can be 
gathered like electricity from the clouds and dissi- 
pated back again into space. Life is definite and 
resident ; and Spiritual Life is not a visit from a 
force, but a resident tenant in the soul. 

This is, however, to formulate the statement of the 
third point, that Spiritual Life is not an ordinary 

* One must not be misled by popular statements in this con- 
nection, such as this of Professor Owen's : There are organ- 
isms which we can devitalize and revitalize — devive and re- 
vive — many times." (Monthly Microscopical Journal, May, 
1889. p. 294.) The reference is of course to the extraordinary 
capacity for resuscitation possessed by many of the Protozoa 
and other low forms of life. 
7 



98 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

form of energy or force. The analogy from Nature 
endorses this, but here Nature stops. It cannot say 
what Spiritual Life is. Indeed what Natural Life is 
remains unknown, and the word Life still wanders 
through Science without a definition. Nature is 
silent, therefore, and must be as to Spiritual Life. 
But in the absence of natural light we fall back upon 
that complementary revelation which always shines 
when truth is necessary and where Nature fails. We 
ask with Paul when this Life first visited him on the 
Damascus road, What is this ? " Who art Thou, 
Lord ? " And we hear, " I am Jesus." * 

We must expect to find this denied. Besides a 
proof from Revelation, this is an argument from 
experience. And yet we shall still be told that this 
Spiritual Life is a force. But let it be remembered 
what this means it Science, it means the heresv of 
confounding Force with Vitality. We must also 
expect to be told that this Spiritual Life is simply a 
development of ordinary Life— just as Dr. Bastian 
tells us that natural Life is formed according to the 
same laws which determine the more simple chemical 
combinations. But remember what this means in 
Science. It is the heresy of Spontaneous Generation, 
a heresy so thoroughly discredited now that scarcely 
an authority in Europe will lend his name to it. 
Who art Thou, Lord ? Unless we are to be allowed 
to hold Spontaneous Generation there is no alterna- 
tive : Life can only come from Life : " I am Jesus." 

A hundred other questions now rush into the mind 
* Acts ix. 5. 



BIOGENESIS. 99 

ahout this Life : How does it come ? Why does it 
come ? Plow is it manifested ? What faculty does 
it employ ? Where does it reside ? Is it communi- 
cable? What are its conditions? One or two of 
these questions may be vaguely answered, the rest 
bring us face to face" with mj^stery. Let it not be 
thought that the scientific treatment of a Spiritual 
subject has reduced religion to a problem of physics, 
or demonstrated God by the laws of biology. A 
religion without mystery is an absurdity. Even 
Science has its mysteries, none more inscrutable than 
around this Science of Life. It taught us sooner or 
later to expect mystery, and now we enter its domain. 
Let it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud 
does not fall and cover us till we have ascertained 
the most momentous truth of Religion — that Christ 
is in the Christian. 

Not that there is anything new in this. The 
Churches have always held that Christ was the 
source of Life. No spiritual man ever claims that his 
spirituality is his own. " I live," he will tell you ; 
" nevertheless it is not I, but Christ liveth in me.' 
Christ our Life has indeed been the only doctrine in 
the Christian Church from Paul to Augustin, from 
Calvin to Newman. Yet, when the Spiritual man 
is cross-examined upon this confession it is astonish- 
ing to find what uncertain hold it has upon his mind. 
Doctrinally he states it adequately and holds it 
unhesitatingly. But when pressed with the literal 
question he shrinks from the answer. We do not 
really believe that the Living Christ has touched us 



'O W ****«« ""M WVl AV^V,V* UU, 



100 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

that He make His abode in us. Spiritual Life is 
not as real to us as Natural Life. And we cover our 
retreat into unbelieving vagueness with a plea of 
reverence, justified, as we think, by the "Thus far 
and no farther " of ancient Scriptures. There is 
often a great deal of intellectual sin concealed under 
this old aphorism. When men do not really wish to 
go farther they find it an honorable convenience 
sometimes to sit down on the outermost edge of the 
Holy Ground on the pretext of taking off their shoes. 
Yet we must be certain that, making a virtue of 
reverence, we are not merely excusing ignorance ; 
or, under the plea of mystery, evading a truth which 
has been stated in the New Testament a hundred 
times, in the most literal form, and with all but 
monotonous repetition. The greatest truths are 
always the most loosely held. And not the least of 
the advantages of taking up this question from the 
present standpoint is that we may see how a con- 
fused doctrine can really bear the luminous definition 
of Science and force itself upon us with all the weight 
of Natural Law. 

What is mystery to many men, what feeds their 
worship, and at the same time spoils it, is that area 
round all great truth which is really capable of illu- 
mination, and into which every earnest mind is 
permitted and commanded to go with a light. We 
cry mystery long before the region of mystery comes. 
True mystery casts no shadows around. It is a 
sudden and awful gulf yawning across the field of 
knowledge; its form is irregular, but its lips are 



BIOGENESIS. 101 

clean cut and sharp, and the mind can go to the very 
verge and look down the precipice into the dim 
abyss, — 

" Where writhing clouds unroll, 
Striving to utter themselves in shapes." 

We have gone with a light to the very verge of this 
truth. "We have seen that the Spiritual Life is an 
endowment from the Spiritual World, and that the 
Living Spirit of Christ dwells in the Christian. 
But now the gulf yawns black before us. What 
more does Science know of Life % Nothing. It 
knows nothing further about its origin in detail. 
It knows nothing about its ultimate nature. It can- 
not even define it. There is a helplessness in scien- 
tific books here, and a continual confession of it 
which to thoughtful minds is almost touching. 
Science, therefore, has not eliminated the true mys- 
teries from our faith, but on! v the false. And it has 
done more. It has made true mystery scientific. 
Religion in having mystery is in analogy with all 
around it. Where there is exceptional mystery in 
the Spiritual World it will generally be found that 
there is a corresponding mystery in the natural 
world. And, as Origen centuries ago insisted, the 
difficulties of Religion are simply the difficulties of 
Nature. 

One question more we may look at for a moment. 
What can be gathered on the surface as to the pro- 
cess of Regeneration in the individual soul ? From 
the analogies of Biology w T e should expect three 



102 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

things : First, that the New Life should dawn sud- 
denly ; Second, that it should come " without ob- 
servation " ; Third, that it should develop gradually. 
On two of these points there can be little contro- 
versy. The gradual ness of growth is a characteristic 
which strikes the simplest observer. Long before the 
word Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this 
very connection — " First the blade, then the ear, 
then the full corn in the ear." It is well known 
also to those who study the parables of Nature that 
there is an ascending scale of slowness as we rise in 
the scale of Life. Growth is most gradual in the 
highest forms. Man attains his maturity after a 
score of years ; the monad completes its humble 
cycle in a day. What wonder if development be 
tardy in the Creature of Eternity ? A Christian's 
sun has sometimes set, and a critical world has seen 
as yet no corn in the ear. As yet ? " As yet," in 
this long Life, has not begun. Grant him the years 
proportionate to his place in the scale of Life. " The 
time of harvest is not yet." 

Again, in addition to being slow, the phenomena 
of growth are secret. Life is invisible. When the 
New Life manifests itself it is a surprise. Thou canst 
not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. When 
the plant lives whence has the Life come ? When 
it dies whither has it gone ? Thou canst not tell 
. . . so is every one that is born of the Spirit. For 
the kingdom of God cometh without observation. 

Yet once more, — and this is a point of strange and 
frivolous dispute, — this Life comes suddenly. This 



BIOGENESIS. 103 

is the only way in which Life can come. Life can- 
not come gradually — health can, structure can, but 
not Life. A new theology has laughed at the Doc- 
trine of Conversion. Sudden Conversion especially 
has been ridiculed as untrue to philosophy and im- 
possible to human nature. We may not be concerned 
in buttressing any theology because it is old. But 
we find that this old theolog-v is scientific. There 
may be cases — the} 7 are probably in the majority — 
where the moment of contact with the Living Spirit 
though sudden has been obscure, But the real mo- 
ment and the conscious moment are two different 
things. Science pronounces nothing as to the con- 
scious moment. It' it did it would probably say that 
that was seldom the real moment — just as in the 
natural Life the conscious moment is not the real 
moment. The moment of birth in the natural world 
is not a conscious moment — we do not know we are 
born till long afterward. Yet there are men to whom 
the Origin of the "New Life in time has been no 
difficulty. To Paul, for instance, Christ seems to 
have come at a definite period of time, the exact 
moment and second of which could have been 
known. And this is certainly, in theory at least, the 
normal Origin of Life, according to the principles 
of Biology. The line between the living and the 
dead is a sharp line. When the dead atoms of Car- 
bon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, are seized upon 
by Life, the organism at first is very lowly. It 
possesses few functions. It has little beauty. 
Growth is the work of time. But Life is not. That 



104 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

comes in a moment. At one moment it was dead ; 
the next it lived. This is conversion, the " pass- 
ing," as the Bible calls it, " from Death unto Life.-' 
Those who have stood by another's side at the solemn 
hoar of this dread possession have been conscious 
sometimes of an experience which words are not al- 
lowed to utter — a something like the sudden snap- 
ping of a chain, the waking from a dream. 



DEGENERATION. 



u J went by the field of the slothful, and by the vine- 
yard of the man void of understanding ; and lo, it icas 
all grown over ivith thorns, and iiettles had covered the 
face thereof and the stone wall thereof ivas broken down. 
Then I saio and considered it well; I looked upon it 
and received instruction" — Solomon. 



DEGENERATION. 

" How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ? " — 
Hebrews. 

"We have as possibilities either Balance, or Elaboration, 
or Degeneration.'' — E. Ray Lankester. 

In one of his best known books, Mr. Darwin brings 
out a fact which may be illustrated in some such way 
as this : Suppose a bird fancier collects a flock of 
tame pigeons distinguished by all the infinite orna- 
mentations of their race. They are of all kinds, of 
every shade of color, and adorned with every variety 
of marking. He takes them to an uninhabited island 
and allows them to fly off wild into the woods. 
They found a colony there, and after the lapse of 
many years the owner returns to the spot. He will 
find that a remarkable change has taken place in the 
interval. The birds, or their descendants rather, 
have all become changed into the same color. The 
black, the white and the dun, the striped, the spotted, 
and the ringed, are all metamorphosed into one — a 
dark slaty blue. Two plain black bands monoto- 
nously repeat themselves upon the wings of each, and 
the loins beneath are white ; but all the variety, all 
the beautiful colors, all the old graces of form it may 

be, have disappeared. These improvements were the 

107 



108 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL AVORLD. 

result of care and nature, of domestication, of civili- 
zation ; and now that these influences are removed, 
the birds themselves undo the past and lose what 
they had gained. The attempt to elevate the race 
has been mysteriously thwarted. It is as if the 
original bird, the far remote ancestor of all doves, 
had been blue, and these had been compelled by 
some strange law to discard the badges of their 
civilization and conform to the ruder image of the 
first. The natural law by which such a change 
occurs is called The Principle of Reversion to Type. 

It is a proof of the universality of this law that 
the same thing will happen with a plant. A garden 
is planted, let us say, with strawberries and roses, 
and for a number of years is left alone. In process 
of time it will run to waste. But this does not mean 
that the plants will really waste away, but that they 
will change into something else, and, as it invariably 
appears, into something worse ; in the one case, 
namely, into the small, wild strawberry of the woods, 
and in the other into the primitive dog-rose of the 
hedges. 

If we neglect a garden plant, then, a natural 
principle of deterioration comes in, and changes it 
into a worse plant. And if we neglect a bird, by the 
same imperious law it will be gradually changed 
into an uglier bird. Or if we neglect almost any of 
the domestic animals, they will rapidly revert to 
wild and worthless forms again. 

Now the same thing exactly would happen in the 
case of you or me. Why should Man be an excep- 



DEGENERATION. 109 

tion to any of the laws of Nature ? Nature knows 
him simply as an animal — Sub-kingdom Vertebrata, 
Class Mammalia, Order Bimana. And the law of 
Reversion to Type runs through all creation. If a 
man neglect himself for a few years he will change 
into a worse man and a lower man. If it is his body 
that he neglects, he will deteriorate into a wild and 
bestial savage — like the de-humanized men who are 
discovered sometimes upon desert islands. If it is 
his mind, it will degenerate into imbecility and mad- 
ness — solitary confinement has the power to unmake 
men's minds and leave them idiots. If he neglect 
his conscience, it will run off into lawlessness and 
vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must inevitably 
atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. 

We have here, then, a thoroughly natural basis for 
the question before us. If we neglect, with this uni- 
versal principle staring us in the face, how shall 
we escape ? If we neglect the ordinary means of 
keeping a garden in order, how shall it escape run- 
ning to weeds and waste? Or, if we neglect the 
opportunities for cultivating the mind, how shall it 
escape ignorance and feebleness? So, if we neglect 
the soul, how shall it escape the natural retrograde 
movement, the inevitable relapse into barrenness 
and death ? 

It is not necessary, surely, to pause for proof that 
there is such a retrograde principle in the being of 
every man. It is demonstrated by facts, and by 
the analogy of all Nature. Three possibilities of life, 
according to Science, are open to all living organisms 



/ 

/ 



110 NATURAL LAW Itf THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

—Balance, Evolution, and Degeneration. The first 
denotes the precarious persistence of a life along 
what looks like a level path, a character which seems 
to hold its own alike against the attacks of evil and 
the appeals of good. It implies a set of circumstances 
so balanced by choice or fortune that they neither 
influence for better nor for worse. But except in 
theory this state of equilibrium, normal in the in- 
organic kingdom, is really foreign in the world of 
life ; and what seems inertia may be a true Evolution 
unnoticed from its slowness, or likelier still a move- 
ment of Degeneration subtly obliterating as it falls 
the very traces of its former height. From this state 
of apparent Balance, Evolution is the escape in the 
upward direction, Degeneration in the lower. But 
Degeneration, rather than Balance or Elaboration, is 
the possibility of life embraced by the majority of 
mankind. And the choice is determined by man's own 
nature. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on the 
verge of continual temptation, its perpetual adjust- 
ments become fatiguing, its measured virtue is mo- 
notonous and uninspiring. More difficult still, appar- 
ently, is the life of ever upward growth. Most men 
attempt it for a time, but growth is slow ; and despair 
overtakes them while the goal is far away. Yet 
none of these reasons fully explains the fact that 
the alternative which remains is adopted by the ma- 
jority of men. That Degeneration is easy only 
half accounts for it. Why is it easy ? Why but that 
already in each man's very nature this principle is 
supreme ? He feels within his soul a silent drifting 



DEG ENER ATION. 1 11 

motion impelling him downward with irresistible 
force. Instead of aspiring to Conversion to a higher 
Typo he submits by a law of his nature to Reversion 
to a lower. This is Degeneration — that principle by 
which the organism, failing to develop itself, failing 
even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, and 
becomes more and more adapted to a degraded form 
of life. 

All men who know themselves are conscious that 
this tendency, deep-rooted and active, exists within 
their nature. Theologically it is described as a 
gravitation, a bias toward evil. The Bible view is 
that man is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. 
And experience tells him that he will shape himself 
into further sin and ever deepening iniquity without 
the smallest effort, without in the least intending it, 
and in the most natural way in the world if he 
simply let his life run. It is on this principle that, 
completing the conception, the wicked are said 
further in the Bible to be lost. Thev are not reallv 
lost as yet, but they are on the sure way to it. The 
bias of their lives is in full action. There is no drag: 
on anywhere. The natural tendencies are having 
it all their own way ; and although the victims may 
be quite unconscious that all this is going on, it is 
patent to every one who considers even the natural 
bearings of the case that " the end of these things 
is Death." When we see a man fall from the top 
of a five-story house, we say the man is lost. We 
say that before he has fallen a foot : for the same 
principle that made him fall the one foot will mu 



1 ] 2 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

doubtedly make him complete the descent by falling 
other eighty or ninety feet. So that he is a dead 
man, or a lost man from the very first. The gravi- 
tation of sin in a human soul acts precisely in the 
same way. Gradually, with gathering momentum 
it sinks a man further and further from God and 
righteousness and lands him, by the sheer action of 
a natural law, in the hell of a neglected life. 

But the lesson is not less clear from analogy. 
Apart even from the law of Degeneration, apart 
from Reversion to Tj 7 pe, there is in every living 
organism a law of Death. We are wont to imagine 
that Nature is full of Life. In reality it is full of 
Death. One cannot say it is natural for a plant to 
live. Examine its nature fully, and you have to 
admit that its natural tendency is to die. It is 
kept from dying by a mere temporary endowment, 
which gives it an ephemeral dominion over the 
elements — gives it power to utilize for a brief span 
the rain, the sunshine, and the air. Withdraw this 
temporary endowment for a moment and its true 
nature is revealed. Instead of overcoming Nature it 
is overcome. The very things which appeared to 
minister to its growth and beauty now turn against 
it and make it decay and die. The sun which 
Avarmed it, withers it ; the air and rain which 
nourished it, rot it. It is the very forces which 
we associate with life which, when their true nature 
appears, are discovered to be really the ministers 
of death. 

This law, which is true for the whole plant-world 



DEGENERATION. 113 

is also valid for the animal and for men. Air is 
not life, but corruption — so literally corruption that 
the only way to keep out corruption, when life has 
ebbed, is to keep out air. Life is merely a tempo- 
rary suspension of these destructive powers : and 
this is truly one of the most accurate definitions 
of life we have yet received — " the sum total of the 
functions which resist death." 

Spiritual life, in like manner, is the sum total of 
the functions which resist sin . The soul's atmosphere 
is the daily trial, circumstance, and temptation of 
the world. And as it is life alone which gives the 
plant power to utilize the elements, and as, without 
it, they utilize it, so it is the spiritual life alone 
which gives the soul power to utilize temptation and 
trial ; and without it they destroy the soul. How 
shall we escape if we refuse to exercise these func- 
tions — in other words, if "we neglect ? 

This destroying process, observe, goes on quite 
independently of God's judgment on sin. God's 
judgment on sin is another and a more awful fact 
of which this may be a part. But it is a distinct 
fact by itself, which we can hold and examine 
separately, that on purely natural principles the 
soul that is left to itself un watched, uncultivated, 
unredeemed, must fall away into death by its own 
nature. The soul that sinneth " it shall die." It 
shall die, not necessarily because God passes sen- 
tence of death upon it, but because it cannot help 
dying. It has neglected " the functions which resist 

death," and has always been dying. The punish- 
8 



114 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

merit is in its very nature, and the sentence is being 
gradually carried out all along the path of life by 
ordinary processes which enforce the verdict with 
the appalling faithfulness of law. 

There is an affectation that religious truths lie 
beyond the sphere of the comprehension which 
serves men in ordinary things. This question at 
least must be an exception. It lies as near the 
natural as the spiritual. If it makes no impression 
on a man to know that God will visit his iniquities 
upon him, he cannot blind himself to the fact that 
Nature will. Do we not all know what it is to be 
punished by Nature for disobeying her ? We have 
looked round the wards of a hospital, a prison, or 
a madhouse, and seen there Nature at work squaring 
her accounts with sin. And we knew as we looked 
that if no Judge sat on the throne of heaven at 
all there was a Judgment there, where an inexorable 
Nature was crying aloud for justice, and carrying 
out her heavy sentences for violated laws. 

When God gave Nature the law into her own 
hands in this way, He seems to have given her 
two rules upon which her sentences were to be based. 
The one is formally enunciated in this sentence, 
" Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he 
also reap." The other is informally expressed in 
this, " If we neglect how shall we escape ? " 

The first is the positive law, and deals with sins 
of commission. The other, which we are now dis- 
cussing, is the negative, and deals with sins of 
omission. It does not say anything about sowing, 



DEGENERATION 115 

but about not sowing. It takes up the case of souls 
which are lying fallow. It does not say, if we sow 
corruption we shall reap corruption. Perhaps we 
would not be so unwise, so regardless of ourselves, 
of public opinion, as to sow corruption. It does 
not sa}f, if we sow tares we shall reap tares. We 
might never do anything so foolish as sow tares. 
But if we sow nothing, it says, we shall reap nothing. 
If we put nothing into the field, we shall take nothing 
out. If we neglect to cultivate in summer, how 
shall we escape starving in winter? 

"Now the Bible raises this question, but does not 
answer it — because it is too obvious to need answer- 
ing. How shall we escape if we neglect ? The 
answer is, we cannot. In the nature of things we 
cannot. We cannot escape any more than a man 
can escape drowning who falls into the sea and 
has neglected to learn to swim. In the nature of 
things he cannot escape — nor can he escape who has 
neglected the great salvation. 

Now why should such fatal consequences follow 
a simple process like neglect ? The popular im- 
pression is that a man, to be what is called lost, must 
be an open and notorious sinner. He must be one 
who 1ms abandoned all that is good and pure in life, 
and sown to the flesh with all his might and main. 
But this principle goes further. It says simply. 
" If we neglect." Any one may see the reason 
why a notoriously wicked person should not escape ; 
but why should not all the rest of us escape ? What 
is to hinder people who are not notoriously wicked 



110 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

escaping — people who never sowed anything in par- 
ticular % Why is it such a sin to sow nothing in 
particular ? 

There must be some hidden and vital relation 
between these three words, Salvation, Neglect, and 
Escape — some reasonable, essential, and indissoluble 
connection. Why are these words so linked together 
as to weight this clause with all the authority and 
solemnity of a sentence of death ? 

The explanation has partly been given already. 
It lies still further, however, in the meaning of the 
word Salvation. And this, of course, is not at all 
Salvation in the ordinary sense of forgiveness of sin. 
This is one great meaning of Salvation, the first and 
the greatest. But this is spoken to people who are 
supposed to have had this. It is the broader word, 
therefore, and includes not only forgiveness of sin 
but salvation or deliverance from the downward bias 
of the soul. It takes in that whole process of rescue 
from the power of sin and selfishness that should 
be going on from day to day in every human life. 
We have seen that there, is a natural principle in 
man lowering him, deadening him, pulling him down 
by inches to the mere animal plane, blinding reason, 
searing conscience, paralyzing will. This is the 
active destroying principle, or Sin. Now to counter- 
act this, God has discovered to us another principle 
which will stop this drifting process in the soul, 
steer it round, and make it drift the other way. 
This is the active saving principle, or Salvation. If 
a man find the first of these powers furiously at 



DEGENERATION. 117 

work within him, dragging his whole life downward 
to destruction, there is only one way to escape his 
fate — to take resolute hold of the upward power 
and be borne by it to the opposite goal. And as 
this second power is the only one in the universe 
which has the slightest real effect upon the first, 
how shall a man escape if he neglect it ? To neglect 
it is to cut off the only possible chance of escape. 
In declining this he is simply abandoning himself 
with his eyes open to that other and terrible energy 
which is already there, and which, in the natural 
course of things, is bearing him every moment 
further and further from escape. 

From the very nature of Salvation, therefore, it is 
plain that the only thing necessary to make it of no, 
effect is neglect. Hence the Bible could not fail to 
lay strong emphasis on a word so vital. It was not 
necessary for it to say, how shall we escape if we 
trample upon the great salvation, or doubt, or de- 
spise, or reject it. A man who has been poisoned 
only need neglect the antidote and he will die. It 
makes no difference whether he dashes it on the 
ground, or pours it out of the window, or sets it down 
by his bedside, and stares at it all the time he is 
dying. lie will die just the same, whether he de- 
stroys it in a passion, or coolly refuses to have any- 
thing to do with it. And as a matter of fact proba- 
bly most deaths, spiritually, are gradual dissolutions 
of the last class rather than rash suicides of the first. 

This, then, is the effect of neglecting salvation 
from the side of salvation itself ; and the conclusion 



118 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

is that from the very nature of salvation escape is 
out of the question. Salvation is a definite process. 
If a man refuse to submit himself to that process, 
clearly he cannot have the benefits of it. As many 
as received Him to them gave He power to hecome the 
sons of God. He does not avail himself of this 
power. It may be mere carelessness or apathy. 
Nevertheless the neglect is fatal. He cannot escape 
because he will not. 

Turn now to another aspect of the case — to the 
effect upon the soul itself. Neglect does more for 
the soul than make it miss salvation. It despoils 
it of its capacity for salvation. Degeneration iu 
the spiritual sphere involves primarily the impairing 
of the faculties of salvation and ultimately the loss 
of them. It really means that the very soul itself 
becomes piecemeal destroyed until the very capacity 
for God and righteousness is gone. 

The soul, in its highest sense, is a vast capacity for 
God. It is like a curious chamber added on to being, 
and somehow involving being, a chamber with elastic 
and contractile walls, which can be expanded, with 
God as its guest, inimitably, but which without God 
shrinks and shrivels until every vestige of the Divine 
is gone, and God's image is left without God's 
Spirit, One cannot call what is left a soul ; it is a 
shrunken, useless organ, a capacity sentenced to 
death by disuse, which droops as a withered hand 
by the side, and cumbers nature like a rotted branch. 
Nature has her revenge upon neglect as well as upon 



DEGENERATION. 119 

extravagance. Misuse, with her, is as mortal a sin 
as abuse. 

There are certain burrowing animals — the mole 
for instance — which have taken to spending their 
lives beneath the surface of the ground. And Na- 
ture has taken her revenge upon them in a thoroughly 
natural way — she has closed up their eyes. If they 
mean to live in darkness, she argues, eyes are ob- 
viously a superfluous function. By neglecting them 
these animals made it clear they do not want them. 
And as one of Nature's fixed principles is that noth- 
ing shall exist in vain, the eyes are presently taken 
away, or reduced to a rudimentary state. There are 
fishes also which have had to pay the same terrible 
forfeit for having made their abode in dark caverns 
where eyes can never be required. And in exactly 
the same way the spiritual eye must die and lose its 
power by purely natural law if the soul choose to 
walk in darkness rather than in light. 

This is the meaning of the favorite paradox of 
Christ, " From him that hath not shall be taken 
away even that which he hath ; " " take therefore 
the talent from him." The religious faculty is a 
talent, the most splendid and sacred talent we 
possess. Yet it is subject to the natural conditions 
and laws. If any man take his talent and hide it in 
a napkin, although it is doing him neither harm nor 
good apparently, God will not allow him to have it. 
Although it is lying there rolled up in the darkness, 
not conspicuously affecting any one, still God will 
not allow him to keep it. He will not allow him to 



120 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

keep it any more than Nature would allow the fish 
to keep their e} T es. Therefore, He says, " take the 
talent from him." And Nature does it. 

This man's crime was simply neglect — " thou 
wicked and slothful servant." It was a wasted life 
— a life which failed in the holy stewardship of 
itself. Such a life is a peril to all who cross its path. 
Degeneration compasses Degeneration. It is only a 
character which is itself developing that can aid the 
Evolution of the world and so fulfil the end of life. 
For this high usury each of our lives, however small 
may seem our capital, was given us by God. And it 
is just the men whose capital seems small who need 
to choose the best investments. It is significant that 
it was the man who had only one talent who was 
guilty of neglecting it. Men with ten talents, men 
of large gifts and burning energies, either direct 
their powers nobly and usefully, or misdirect them 
irretrievabh r . It is those who belong to the rank 
and file of life who need this warning most. Others 
have an abundant store and sow to the spirit or the 
flesh with a lavish hand. But we, with our small 
gift, what boots our sowing ? Our temptation as 
ordinary men is to neglect to sow at all. The in- 
terest on our talent would be so small that we ex- 
cuse ourselves with the reflection that it is not worth 
while. 

It is no objection to all this to say that we are 
unconscious of this neglect or misdirection of our 
powers. That is the darkest feature in the case. If 
there were uneasiness there might be hope. If there 



DEGENERATION. 121 

were, somewhere about our soul, a something which 
was not gone to sleep like all the rest ; if there were 
a contending force anywhere ; if we would let even 
that work instead of neglecting it, it would gain 
strength from hour to hour, and waken up one at a 
time each torpid and dishonored faculty till our 
whole nature became alive with strivings against self, 
and every avenue was open wide for God. But the 
apathy, the numbness of the soul, what can be said 
of such a symptom but that it means the creeping on 
of death ? There are accidents in which the victims 
feel no pain. They are well and strong they think. 
But they are dying. And if you ask the surgeon by 
their side what makes him give this verdict, he will 
say it is this numbness over the frame which tells 
how some of the parts have lost already the very 
capacity for life. 

JSTor is it the least tragic accompaniment of this 
process that its effects may even be concealed from 
others. The soul undergoing Degeneration, surely 
by some arrangement with Temptation planned in 
the uttermost hell, possesses the power of absolute 
secrecy. When all within is festering decay and 
rottenness, a Judas, without anomaly, may kiss his 
Lord. This invisible consumption, like its fell ana- 
logue in the natural world, may even keep its victim 
beautiful while slowly slaving it. When one ex- 
amines the little Crustacea which have inhabited for 
centuries the lakes of the Mammoth Cave of Ken- 
tucky, one is at first astonished to find these animals 
apparently endowed with perfect eyes. The pallor 



122 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

of the head is broken by two black pigment specks, 
conspicuous indeed as the only bits of color on the 
whole blanched body ; and these, even to the casual 
observer, certainlv represent well-defined organs of 
vision. But what do they with eyes in these Sty- 
gian waters? There reigns an everlasting night. 
Is the law for once at fault ? A swift incision with 
the scalpel, a glance with a lens, and their secret is 
betrayed. The eyes are a mockery. Externally 
thev are organs of vision — the front of the eve is 
perfect ; behind, there is nothing but a mass of ruins. 
The optic nerve is a shrunken, atrophied and insen- 
sate thread. These animals have organs of vision, 
and yet they have no vision. They have eyes, but 
they see not. 

Exactlv what Christ said of men : Thev had eyes 
but no vision. And the reason is the same. It is 
the simplest problem of natural history. The Crus- 
tacea of the Mammoth Cave have chosen to abide in 
darkness. Therefore they have become fitted for it. 
By refusing to see they have waived the right to see. 
And Nature has grimly humored them. Nature had 
to do it by her very constitution. It is her defence 
against waste that decay of faculty should imme- 
diately follow disuse of function. He that hath ears 
to hear he whose ears have not degenerated, let him 
hear. 

Men tell us sometimes there is no such thing as 
an atheist. There must be. There are some men to 
whom it is true that there is no God. They cannot 



DEGENERATION. 123 

see God because they have no eye. They have oniy 
an abortive organ, atrophied by neglect. 

All this, it is commonplace again to insist, is not 
the effect of neglect when we die, bat while we live. 
The process is in full career and operation now. It 
is useless projecting consequences into the future 
when the effects may be measured now. We are 
always practising these little deceptions upon our- 
selves, postponing the consequences of our misdeeds 
as if they were to culminate some other day about 
the time of death. It makes us sin with a lighter 
hand to run an account with retribution, as it were, 
and delay the reckoning time with God. But every 
day is a reckoning day. Every soul is a Book of 
Judgment, and Nature, as a recording angel, marks 
there every sin. As all will be judged by the great 
Judge some day, all are judged by Nature now. The 
sin of yesterday, as part of its penalty, has the sin of 
to-day. All follow us in silent retribution on our 
past, and go with us to the grave. We cannot cheat 
Nature. - No sleight-of-heart can rob religion of a 
present, the immortal nature of a now. The poet 



smgs- 



" I looked behind to find my past, 
And lo, it had gone before." 

But no, not all. The unforgiven sins are not away 
in keeping somewhere to be let loose upon us when 
we die ; they are here, within us, now. To-day brings 
the resurrection of their past, to-morrow of to-day. 
And the powers of sin, to the exact strength that 



124: NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

we have developed them, nearing their dreadful 
culmination with every breath we draw, are here, 
within us, now. The souls of some men are already 
honey-combed through and through with the eternal 
consequences of neglect, so that taking the natural 
and rational view of their case just now, it is simply 
inconceivable that there is any escape just now. 
What a fearful thing it is to fall into tbe hands of 
the living God ! A fearful thing 1 even if, as the 
philosopher tells us, " the hands of the Living God 
are the Laws of Nature." 

Whatever hopes of a " heaven 5? a neglected soul 
may have, can be shown to be an ignorant and 
delusive dream. How is the soul to escape to 
heaven if it has neglected for a lifetime the means 
of escape from the world and self ? And where is 
the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not 
developed on earth ? Where, indeed, is even the 
smallest spiritual appreciation of God and heaven to 
come from when so little of spirituality has ever been 
known or manifested here? If everv God ward 
aspiration of the soul has been allowed to become 
extinct, and every inlet that was open to heaven to 
be choked, and every talent for religious love and 
trust to have been persistently neglected and ignored, 
where are the faculties to come from that would 
even find the faintest relish in such things as God 
and heaven gives ? 

These three words, Salvation, Escape, and Neglect, 
then, are not casually, but organically and necessarily 
connected. Their doctrine is scientific, not arbitrary. 



DEGENERATION. 125 

Escape means nothing more than the gradual emer- 
gence of the higher being from the lower, and 
nothing less. It means the gradual putting off" of 
all that cannot enter the higher state, or heaven, 
and simultaneously the putting on of Christ. It 
involves the slow completing of the soul and the 
development of the capacity for God. 

Should any one object that from this scientific 
standpoint the opposite of salvation is annihilation, 
the answer is at hand. From this standpoint there 
is no such word. 

If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to 
come to us somehow, vaguely. We are not to hope 
for anything startling or mysterious. It is a definite 
opening along certain lines which are definitely 
marked by God, which begin at the Cross of Christ, 
and lead direct to Him. Each man in the silence of 
his own soul must work out this salvation for himself 
with fear and trembling — with fear, realizing the 
momentous issues of his task ; with trembling, lest 
before the tardy work be done the voice of Death 
should summon him to stop. 

What these lines are may, in closing, be indicated 
in a word. The true problem of the spiritual life 
may be said to be, do the opposite of Neglect. 
Whatever this is, do it, and you shall escape. It will 
just mean that you are so to cultivate the soul that 
all its powers will open out to God, and in beholding 
God be drawn away from sin. The idea really is to 
develop among the ruins of the old a new " creature " 
—a new creature which, while the old is suffering 



126 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Degeneration from Neglect, is gradually to unfold, to 
escape away and develop on spiritual lines to spir- 
itual beauty and strength. And as our conception of 
spiritual being must be taken simply from natural 
being, our ideas of the lines along which the new* 
religious nature is to run must be borrowed from the 
known lines of the old. 

There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the 
religious nature. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, 
and. you never miss it. You simply see nothing. 
But develop it and you see God. And the line 
along which to develop it is known to us. Become 
pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God. 
Here, then, is one opening for soul culture — the 
avenue through purity of heart to the spiritual seeing 
of God. 

Then there is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, 
leave it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You 
simply hear nothing. Develop it, and you hear God. 
And the line along which to develop it is known 
to us. Obey Christ. Become one of Christ's flock. 
" The sheep hear His voice, and He calleth them by 
name." Here, then, is another opportunity for the 
culture of the soul — a gateway through the Shep- 
herd's fold to hear the Shepherd's voice. 

And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired — 
such a sense as the woman had who touched the 
hem of Christ's garment, that wonderful electric 
touch called faith, which moves the very heart of 
God. 

And there is a Sense of Taste — a spiritual hunger 



DEGENERATION. 127 

after God ; a something within which tastes and sees 
that He is good. And there is the Talent for Inspira- 
tion. Neglect that, and all the scenery of the spiri- 
tual world is flat and frozen. But cultivate it, and 
it penetrates the whole soul with sacred fire, and 
illuminates creation with God. And last of all there 
is the great capacity for Love, even for the love of 
God — the expanding capacity for feeling more and 
more its height and depth, its length and breadth. 
Till that is felt no man can really understand that 
word, " so great salvation," for what is its measure 
but that other " so " of Christ — God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten Son ? Verily, 
how shall we escape if we neglect that ? * 

* For the scientific basis of this spiritual law the following 
works may be consulted : — 

"The Origin of Species." By Charles Darwin, F.R.S. 
London : John Murray. 1872. 

" Degeneration." By E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S. London : 
Macmillan. 1880. 

" Der, Ursprung der Wirbeltliiere und das Princip des 
Function s-Wechsels." Dr. A. Dorhn. Leipzig : 1875. 

" Lessons from Nature." By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. 
London : John Murray. 1876. 

" The Natural Conditions of Existence as they Affect Ani- 
mal Life," Karl Semper, London : C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1881. 



GROWTH. 



" Is not the evidence of Ease on the very front of all 
the greatest works in existence f Do they not say plainly 
to us, not ' there has been a great effort here,'' but ' there 
has been a great power here ' ? It is not the weariness 
of mortality but the strength of divinity, which vie have 
to recognize in all mighty things ; and that is just what 
we now never recognize, but think that we are to do great 
things by help of iron bars and perspiration / alas ! we 
shall do nothing that way, but lose some pounds of our 
own weight" 

Ruskin. 



GKOWTH. 

" Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." — The Ser- 
mon on the Mount. 

"Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit." — Juvenal. 

What gives the peculiar point to this object-lesson 

from the lips of Jesus is, that He not only made 

the illustration, but made the lilies. It is like an 

inventor describing his own machine. He made the 

lilies and He made me — both on the same broad 

principle. Both together, man and flower, He 

planted deep in the Providence of God ; but as men 

are dull at studying themselves He points to this 

companion-phenomenon to teach us how to live a 

free and natural life, a life which God will unfold 

for us, without our anxiety, as He unfolds the 

flower. For Christ's words are not a general appeal 

to consider nature. Men are not to consider the 

lilies simply to admire their beauty, to dream over 

the delicate strength and grace of stem and leaf. 

The point they were to consider was how they grew 

— how without anxiety or care the flower woke 

into loveliness, how without weaving these leaves 

were woven, how without toiling these complex 

tissues spun themselves, and how without anv effort 

131 



132 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

or friction the whole slowly came ready-made from 
the loom of God in its more than Solomon-like 
glory. " So," He says, making the application 
beyond dispute, "you care-worn, anxious men 
must grow. You, too, need take no thought for 
your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink 
or what ye shall put on. For if God so clothe the 
grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow 
is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe 
you, O ye of little faith ? " 

This nature-lesson was a great novelty in its day ; 
but all men now who have even a " little faith " have 
learned this Christian secret of a composed life. 
Apart even from the parable of the lily, the failures 
of the past have taught most of us the folly of dis- 
quieting ourselves in vain, and we have given up 
the idea that by taking thought we can add a cubit 
to our stature. 

But no sooner has our life settled down to this 
calm trust in God than a new and graver anxiety 
begins. This time it is not for the body we are 
in travail, but for the soul. For the temporal life 
we have considered the lilies, but how is the 
spiritual life to grow? How are we to become 
better men ? How are we to grow in grace ? By 
what thought shall we add the cubits to the spiritual 
stature and reach the fulness of the Perfect Man ? 
And because we know ill how to do this, the old 
anxiety comes back again and our inner life is once 
more an agony of conflict and remorse. After all, 
we have but transferred our anxious thoughts from 



GROWTH. 133 

the body to the soul. Our efforts after Christian 
growth seem only a succession of failures, and in- 
stead of rising into the beauty of holiness our life 
is a daily heartbreak and humiliation. 

~Now the reason of this is very plain. We have 
forgotten the parable of the lily. Yiolent efforts 
to grow are right in earnestness, but wholly wrong 
in principle. There is but one principle of growth 
both for the natural and spiritual, for animal and 
plant, for body and soul. For all growth is an 
organic thing. And the principle of growing in 
grace is once more this, " Consider the lilies how 
they grow" 

In seeking to extend the analogy from the body to 
the soul there are two things about the lilies' growth, 
two characteristics of all growth, on which one must 
fix attention. These are, — 

First, Spontaneousness. 

Second, Mysteriousness. 

I. Spontaneousness. There are three lines along 
which one may seek for evidence of the spontaneous- 
ness of growth. The first is Science. And the 
argument here could not be summed up better than 
in the words of Jesus. The lilies grow, He says, 
of themselves ; they toil not, neither do they spin. 
They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously, 
without trying, without fretting, without thinking. 
Applied in any direction, to plant, to animal, to 
the body or to the soul this law holds. A boy 
grows, for example, without trying. One or twa 
simple conditions are fulfilled, and the growth goes 



134 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

on. He thinks probably as little about the con- 
dition as about the result ; he fulfils the conditions 
by habit, the result follows by nature. Both pro- 
cesses go steadily on from year to year apart from 
himself and all but in spite of himself. One would 
never think of telling a boy to grow. A doctor has 
no prescription for growth. lie can tell me how 
growth may be stunted or impaired, but the process 
itself is recognized as beyond control — one of the 
few, and therefore very significant, things which 
Nature keeps in her own hands. No physician of 
souls, in like manner, has any prescription for 
spiritual growth. It is the question he is most 
often asked and most often answers wrongly. He 
may prescribe more earnestness, more prayer, more 
self-denial, or more Christian work. These are pre- 
scriptions for something, but not for growth. Not 
that they may not encourage growth ; but the soul 
grows as the lily grows, without trying, without 
fretting, without ever thinking. Manuals of devo- 
tion, with complicated rules for getting on in the 
Christian life, would do well sometimes to return 
to the simplicity of nature ; and earnest souls who 
are attempting sanctification by struggle instead of 
sanctification by faith might be spared much humili- 
ation by learning the botany of the Sermon on the 
Mount. There can indeed be no other principle of 
growth than this. It is a vital act. And to try to 
make a thing grow is as absurd as to help the tide 
to come in or the sun rise. 

Another argument for the spontaneousness of 



GROWTH. 135 

growth is universal experience. A boy riot only 
grows without trying, bat he cannot grow if he 
tries. No man by taking thought has ever added 
a cubit to his nature ; nor has any man by mere 
working at his soul ever approached nearer to the 
stature of the Lord Jesus. The stature of the 
Lord Jesus was not itself reached by work, and 
he who thinks to approach its mystical height by 
anxious effort is really receding from it. Christ's 
life unfolded itself from a divine germ, planted 
centrally in His nature, which grew as naturally as 
a flower from a bud. This flower may be imitated ; 
but one can always tell an artificial flower. The 
human form may be copied in wax, yet somehow 
one never fails to detect the difference. And this 
precisely is the difference between a native growth 
of Christian principle and the moral • copy of it. 
The one is natural, the other mechanical. The 
one is a growth, the other an accretion. Now this, 
according to modern biology, is the fundamental 
distinction between the living and the not living, 
between an organism and a crystal. The living 
organism grows, the dead crystal increases. The 
first grows vitally from within, the last adds new 
particles from the outside. The whole difference be- 
tween the Christian and the moralist lies here. The 
Christian works from the centre, the moralist from 
the circumference. The one is an organism, in the 
centre of which is planted by the living God a 
living germ. The other is a crystal, very beautiful 



136 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

it may be ; but only a crystal — it wants the vital 
principle of growth. 

And one sees here also, what is sometimes very 
difficult to see, why salvation in the first instance 
is never connected directly with morality. The 
reason is not that salvation does not demand 
morality, but that it demands so much of it that 
the moralist can never reach up to it. The end of 
Salvation is perfection, the Christlike mind, character 
and life. Morality is on the way to this perfection ; 
it may go a considerable distance towards it, but 
it can never reach it. Only Life can do that. It 
requires something with enormous power of move- 
ment, of grow T th, of overcoming obstacles, to attain 
the perfect. Therefore the man who has w r ithin 
himself this great formative agent, Life, is nearer 
the end than the man w T ho has morality alone. 
The latter can never reach perfection ; the former 
must. For the Life must develop out according to 
its type ; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it 
must unfold into a Christ. Morality, at the utmost, 
only develops the character in one or two direc- 
tions. It may perfect a single virtue here and 
there, but it cannot perfect all. And especially it 
fails always to give that rounded harmony of parts, 
that perfect tune to the whole orchestra, which is 
the world, characteristic of life ; Perfect life is 
not merely the possession of perfect functions, but 
of perfect functions perfectly adjusted to each other 
and all conspiring to a single result, the perfect 
working of the whole organism. It is not said 



GROWTH. 137 

that the character will develop in all its fulness in 
this life. That were a time too short for an Evolu- 
tion so magnificent. In this world only the corn- 
less ear is seen ; sometimes only the small yet still 
prophetic blade. The sneer at the godly man for 
his imperfection is ill-judged. A blade is a small 
thing. At first it grows very near the earth. It is 
often soiled and crushed and downtrodden. But it 
is a living thing. That great dead stone beside it 
is more imposing ; only it will never be anything 
else than a stone. But this small blade — it doth 
not yet appear what it shall he. 

Seeing now that Growth can only be s} r non}^mpus 
with a living automatic process, it is all but super- 
fluous to seek a third line of argument from Scrip- 
ture. Growth there is always described in the 
language of physiology. The regenerate soul is a 
new creature. The Christian is a new man in 
Christ Jesus. He adds the cubits to his stature 
just as the old man does. He is rooted and built 
up in Christ ; he abides in the vine, and so abiding, 
not toiling or spinning, brings forth fruit. The 
Christian in short, like the poet, is born not made ; 
and the fruits of his character are not manufactured 
things but living things, things which have grown 
from the secret germ, the fruits of the living Spirit. 
They are not the produce of this climate, but 
exotics from a sunnier land. 

II. But, secondly, besides this Spontaneousness 
there is this other great characteristic of Growth — 
Mysteriousness. Upon this quality depends the fact, 



13S NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

probably, that so few men ever fathom its real 
character. We are most unspiritual always in deal- 
ing with the simplest spiritual things. A lily grows 
mysteriously, pushing up its solid weight of stem 
and leaf in the teeth of gravity. Shaped into 
beauty by secret and invisible fingers, the flower 
develops we know not how. But we do not wonder 
at it. Every clay the thing is done ; it is Nature, it 
is God. We are spiritual enough at least to under- 
stand that. But when the soul rises slowly above 
the world, pushing up its delicate virtues in the teeth 
of sin, shaping itself mysteriously into the image 
of Christ, we deny that the power is not of man. 
A strong will, we say, a high ideal, the reward of 
virtue, Christian influence, — these will account for it. 
Spiritual character is merely the product of anxious 
work, self-command, and self-denial. We allow, that 
is to say, a miracle to the lily, but none to the man. 
The lilv may crow ; the man must fret and toil and 
spin. 

Now grant for a moment that by hard work and 
self-restraint a man may attain to a very high 
character. It is not denied that this can be done. 
But what is denied is that this is growth, and that 
this process is Christianity. The fact that you can 
account for it proves that it is not growth. For 
growth is mysterious ; the peculiarity of it is that 
you cannot account for it. Mysteriousness, as 
Mozley has well observed, is " the test of spiritual 
birth." And this was Christ's test. " The wind 
bloweth where it listeth. Thou nearest the sound 



GROWTH. 139 

thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or 
whither it goeth, so is every one that is bom of the 
Spirit." The test of spirituality is that you cannot 
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. If you 
can tell, if you can account for it on philosophical 
principles, on the doctrine of influence, on strength 
of will, on a favorable environment, it is not growth. 
It may be so far a success, it may be a perfectly 
honest, even remarkable, and praiseworthy imitation, 
but it is not the real thing. The fruits are wax, the 
flowers artificial — you can tell whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth. 

The conclusion is, then, that the Christian is a unique 
phenomenon. You cannot account for him. And if 
you could he would not be a Christian. Mozley has 
drawn the two characters for us in graphic words : 
" Take an ordinary man of the world — what he 
thinks and what he does, his whole standard of duty 
is taken from the society in which he lives. It is a 
borrowed standard : he is as good as other people 
are ; he does, in the way of duty, what is generally 
considered proper and becoming among those with 
whom his lot is thrown. He reflects established 
opinion on such points. He follows its lead. His 
aims and objects in life again are taken from the 
world around him, and from its dictation. What it 
considers honorable, worth having, advantageous 
and good, he thinks so too and pursues it. His 
motives all come from a visible quarter. It would be 
absurd to say that there is any mystery in such a 
character as this, because it is formed from a known 



140 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

external influence — the influence of social opinion 
and the voice of the world. ' Whence such a char- 
acter cometh' we see ; we venture to say that the 
source and origin of it is open and palpable, and we 
know it just as we know the physical causes of many 
common facts." 

Then there is the other. " There is a certain 
character and disposition of mind of which it is true 
to say that i thou canst not tell whence it cometh or 
whither it goeth.' . . . There are those who stand 
out from among the crowd, which reflects merely the 
atmosphere of feeling and standard of society around 
it, with an impress upon them w r hich bespeaks a 
heavenly birth. . . . JSTow, when we see one of 
those characters, it is a question which we ask our- 
selves, How has the person become possessed of it ? 
Has he caught it from society around him ? That 
cannot be, because it is wholly different from that 
of the world around him. Has he caught it from 
the inoculation of crowds and masses, as the mere 
religious zealot catches his character ? That cannot 
be either, for the type is altogether different from 
that which masses of men under enthusiastic impulses, 
exhibit. There is nothing gregarious in this char- 
acter ; it is the individual's own ; it is not borrowed, 
it is not a reflection of any fashion or tone of the 
world outside ; it rises up from some fount within, 
and it is a creation of which the text says, We know 
not whence it cometh." * 

Now we have all met these two characters — the 
* University Sermons, pp. 234-241. 



GROWTH. 141 

one eminently respectable, upright, virtuous, a trifle 
cold perhaps, and generally, when critically examined, 
revealing somehow the mark of the tool ; the other 
with God's breath still upon it, an inspiration ; not 
more virtuous, but differently virtuous; not more 
humble, but different, wearing the meek and quiet 
spirit artlessly as to the manner born. The other- 
worldliness of such a character is the thing that strikes 
you ; you are not prepared for what it will do or say 
or become next, for it moves from a far-off centre, and 
in spite of its transparency and sweetness, that pres- 
ence fills you always with awe. A man never feels 
the discord of his own life, never hears the jar of the 
machinery by which he tries to manufacture his own 
good points, till he has stood in the stillness of such 
a presence. Then he discerns the difference between 
growth and work. He has considered the lilies, how 
they grow. 

We have now seen that spiritual growth is a pro- 
cess maintained and secured by a spontaneous and 
mysterious inward principle. It is a spontaneous 
principle even in its origin, for it bloweth where it 
listeth ; mysterious in its operation, for we can never 
tell whence it cometh ; obscure in its destination, 
for we cannot tell whence it goeth. The whole 
process therefore transcends us ; we do not work, we 
are taken in hand — " it is God which worketh in us, 
both to will and to do of His good pleasure." We 
do not plan — we are u created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, which God hath before ordained that 
we should walk in them." 



142 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

There may be an obvious objection to all this. It 
takes away all conflict from the Christian life ? t 
makes man, does it not, mere clay in the hands of 
the potter ? It crushes the old character to make a 
new one, and destroys man's responsibility for his 
own soul ? 

Now we are not concerned here in once more 
striking the time-honored " balance between faith 
and works." We are considering how lilies grow, 
and in a specific connection, namely, to discover the 
attitude of mind which the Christian should preserve 
regarding his spiritual growth. That attitude, pri- 
marily, is to be free from care. We are not lodging 
a plea for inactivity of the spiritual energies, but for 
the tranquillity of the spiritual mind. Christ's pro- 
test is not against work, but against anxious thought ; 
and rather, therefore, than complement the lesson 
by showing the other side, we take the risk of still 
further extending the plea in the original direction. 

What is the relation, to recur again to analogy, 
between growth and work in a boy ? Consciously, 
there is no relation at all. The boy never thinks of 
connecting his work with his growth. Work in fact 
is one thing and growth another, and it is so in the 
spiritual life. It it be asked therefore, Is the Chris- 
tian wrong in these ceaseless and agonizing efforts 
after growth ? the answer is, Yes, he is quite wrong, 
or at least, he is quite mistaken. When a boy takes 
a meal or denies himself indigestible things, he does 
not say, " All this will minister to my growth " ; or 
when he runs a race he does not. say, "This will 



GROWTH. 143 

help the next cubit of my stature." It may or it 
may not be true that these things will help his 
stature, but, if he thinks of this, his idea of growth 
is morbid. And this is the point we are dealing 
with. His anxiety here is altogether irrelevant and 
superfluous. Nature is far more bountiful than we 
think. When she gives us energy she asks none 
of it back to expend on our own growth. She will 
attend to that. " Give your work," she says, " and 
your anxiety to others ; trust me to add the cubits 
to your stature." If God is adding to our spiritual 
stature, unfolding the new nature within us, it is a 
mistake to keep twitching at the petals with our 
coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative 
Hand alone. " It is God which giveth the increase." 
Yet we never know how little we have learned of 
the fundamental principle of Christianity till Ave dis- 
cover how much we are all bent on supplementing 
God's free grace. If God is spending work upon a 
Christian, let him be still and know that it is God. 
And if he wants work, he will find it there — in the 
being still. 

Not that there is no work for him who would 
grow, to do. There is work, and severe work, — 
work so great that the worker deserves to have 
himself relieved of all that is superfluous during his 
task. If the amount of energy lost in trying to grow 
were spent in fulfilling rather the conditions of 
growth, we should have many more cubits to show 
for our stature. It is with these conditions that the 
personal work of the Christian is chiefly concerned. 



14i NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Observe for a moment what they are, and their 
exact relation. For its growth the plant needs heat 
light, air, and moisture. A man, therefore, must go 
in search of these, or their spiritual equivalents, and 
this is his work ? By no means. The Christian's 
work is not yet. Does the plant go in search of its 
conditions? Nay, the conditions come to the plant. 
It no more manufactures the heat, light, air, and 
moisture, than it manufactures its own stem. It 
finds them all around it in Mature. It simply stands 
still with its leaves spread out in unconscious prayer, 
and Nature lavishes upon it these and all other 
bounties, bathing it in sunshine, pouring the nour- 
ishing air over and over it, reviving it graciously 
with its nightly dew. Grace, too, is as free as the 
air, The Lord God is a Sun. He is as the Dew to 
Israel. A man has no more to manufacture these 
than he has to manufacture his own soul. He 
stands surrounded by them, bathed in them, beset be- 
hind and before by them. He lives and moves and 
has his being in them. How then shall he go in 
search of them ? Do not thev rather £0 in search of 
him ? Does he not feel how they press themselves 
upon him? Does he not know how unweariedly 
they appeal to him ? Has he not heard how they 
are sorrowful when he will not have them ? His 
work, therefore, is not yet. The voice still says, 
" Be still." 

The conditions of growth, then, and the inward 
principle of growth being both supplied by Nature, 
the tiling man has to do, the little junction left for 



GROWTH. 145 

him to complete, is to apply the one to the other. 
He manufactures nothing; he earns nothing; be 
need be anxious for nothing; his one duty is to he 
in these conditions, to abide in them, to allow grace 
to play over him, to be still therein and know that 
this is God. 

The conflict begins and prevails in all its life-long 
agony the moment a man forgets this. He struggles 
to grow himself instead of struggling to get back 
again into position. He makes the church into a 
workshop when God meant it to be a beautiful 
garden. And even in his closet, where only should 
reign silence — a silence as of the mountains whereon 
the lilies grow— is heard the roar and tumult of ma- 
chinery. True, a man will often have to w T restle with 
his God — but not for growth. The Christian life is 
a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the 
most anxious people in the world are Christians — 
Christians who misunderstand the nature of growth. 
Life is a perpetual self-condemning because they are 
not growing. And the effect is not only the loss of 
tranquillity to the individual. The energies which 
are meant to be spent on the work of Christ are 
consumed in the soul's own fever. So long as the 
Church's activities are spent on growing there is 
nothing to spare for the world. A soldier's time is 
not spent in earning the money to buy his armor, in 
finding food and raiment, in seeking shelter. His 
king provides these things that he may be the more 
at liberty to fight his battles. So, for the soldier of 
the Cross all is provided. His Government has 

10 



116 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

planned to leave him free for the Kingdom's 
work. 

The problem of the Christian life finally is sim- 
plified to this — man has but to preserve the right 
attitude. To abide in Christ, to be in position, that 
is all. Much work is done on board a ship crossing 
the Atlantic. Yet none of it is spent on making the 
ship go. The sailor but harnesses his vessel to the 
wind. He puts his sail and rudder in position, and 
lo, the miracle is wrought. So everywhere God 
creates, man utilizes. All the work of the world is 
merely a taking advantage of energies already there.* 
God gives the wind and the water, and the heat ; 
man but puts himself in the way of the wind, fixes 
his water-wheel in the way of the river, puts his 
piston in the way of the steam ; and so holding him- 
self in position before God's Spirit, all the energies of 
Omnipotence course within his soul. He is like a 
tree planted by a river whose leaf is green and whose 
fruits fail not. Such is the deeper lesson to be 
learned from considering the lily. It is the voice of 
Nature echoing the whole evangel of Jesus, " Come 
unto Me, and I will give you rest." 

* See Bushnell's " New Life." 



DEATH. 



" What could be easier than to form a catena of the 
most philosophical defenders of Christianity, who I 
exhausted language in declaring the impotence of the 
unassisted intellect? Comte has not more 'tig 

enounced the incapacity of man to deal with the Al>- 
te and the Infinite than the whole series of orthodox 
writers. Trust your reason, ice have bet 
are tired, of the phrase, and you icill become Atheists or 
Agnostics. We take you at your word: ice become 
Agnostics.'''' 

Leslie Stephen. 



DEATH. 

"To be carnally minded is Death." — Paul. 

" I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often 
at what they lose." — Buskin. 

" Death," wrote Faber, " is an unsurveyed land, 
an unarranged Science." Poetry draws near Death 
only to hover over it for a moment and withdraw 
in terror. History knows it simply as a universal 
fact. Philosophy finds it among the mysteries of 
being, the one great mystery of being not. All 
contributions to this dread theme are marked by 
an essential vagueness, and every avenue of approach 
seems darkened by impenetrable shadow. 

But modern Biology has found it part of its work 
to push its way into this silent land, and at last 
the world is confronted with a scientific treatment 
of Death. Not that much is added to the old con- 
ception, or much taken from it. "What it is, this 
certain Death with its uncertain issues, we know 
as little as before. But we can define more clearly 
and attach a narrower meaning to the momentous 
symbol. 

The interest of the investigation here lies in the 
fact that Death is one of the outstanding things in 

149 



150 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Xature which has an acknowledged spiritual equiva- 
lent. The prominence of the word in the vocabulary 
of Revelation cannot be exaggerated. Xext to Life 
the most pregnant symbol in religion is its antith- 
esis, Death. And from the time that " If thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die " was heard in 
Paradise, this solemn word has been linked with 
human interests of eternal moment. 

Notwithstanding the unparalleled emphasis upon 
this term in the Christian system, there is none 
more feebly expressed to the ordinary mind. That 
mystery which surrounds the word in the natural 
world shrouds only too completely its spiritual im- 
port. The reluctance which prevents men from 
investigating the secrets of the King of Terrors is 
for a certain length entitled to respect. But it has 
left theology with only the vaguest materials to 
construct a doctrine which, intelligently enforced, 
ought to appeal to all men with convincing power 
and lend the most effective argument to Christianity. 
Whatever may have been its influence in the past, 
its threat is gone for the modern world. The word 
has grown weak. Ignorance has robbed the Grave 
of all its terror, and platitude despoilt Death of 
its sting. Death itself is ethically dead. Which 
of us, for example, enters fully into the meaning of 
words like these : " She that liveth in pleasure is 
dead while she liveth"? Who allows adequate 
weight to the metaphor in the Pauline phrase, " To be 
carnally minded is Death ; " or in this, " The wages 
of sin is Death " ? Or what theology has translated 



DEATH. 151 

into the language of human life the terrific practical 
import of " Dead in trespasses and sins ? " To seek 
to make these phrases once more real and burning ; 
to clothe time-worn formulas with living truth ; to 
put the deepest ethical meaning into the gravest 
symbol of Nature, and fill up with its full conse- 
quence the darkest threat of Revelation — these are 
the objects before us now. 

What, then, is Death? Is it possible to define it 
and embody its essential meaning in an intelligible 
proposition ? 

The most recent and the most scientific attempt 
to investigate Death we owe to the biological studies 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his search for the 
meaning of Life the word Death crosses his path, 
and he turns aside for a moment to define it. Of 
course what Death is depends upon what Life is. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Life, it is well 
known, has been subjected to serious criticism. 
While it has shed much light on many of the 
phenomena of Life, it cannot be affirmed that it 
has taken its place in science as the final solution 
of the fundamental problem of biology. No defi- 
nition of Life, indeed, that has yet appeared can 
be said to be even approximately correct. Its 
mysterious quality evades us ; and we have to be 
content with outward characteristics and accom- 
paniments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved 
riddle. At the same time Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
masterly elucidation of the chief phenomena of 
Life has placed philosophy and science under many 



152 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

obligations, and in the paragraphs which follow we 
shall have to incur a further debt on behalf of 
religion. 

The meaning of Death depending, as has been 
said, on the meaning of Life, we must first set 
ourselves to grasp the leading characteristics which 
distinguish living things. To a physiologist the 
living organism is distinguished from the not-living 
by the performance of certain functions. These 
functions are four in number — Assimilation, Waste, 
Reproduction, and Growth. Xothing could be a 
more interesting task than to point out the co- 
relatives of these in the spiritual sphere, to show 
in what ways the discharge of these functions 
represent the true manifestations of spiritual life, 
and how the failure to perform them constitutes 
spiritual Death. But it will bring us more directly 
to the specific subject before us if we follow rather 
the newer biological lines of Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
According to his definition, Life is " The definite 
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simul- 
taneous and successive, in correspondence with ex- 
ternal co-existences and sequences," * or more shortly 
' ; The continuous adjustment of internal relations 
to external relations."' f An example or two will 
render these important statements at once intelli- 
gible. 

The essential characteristic of a living organism, 
according to these definitions, is that it is in vital 
connection with its general surroundings. A human 
* " Principles of Biology," vol. i, p. 74. f Ibid. 



DEATH. 153 

being, for instance, is in direct contact with the earth 
and air, with all surrounding things, with the warmth 
of the sun, with the music of birds, with the count- 
less influences and activities of nature and of his 
fellow-men. In biological language he is said thus 
to be " in correspondence with his environment." 
He is, that is to say, in active and vital connection 
with them, influencing them possibly, but especially 
being influenced by them. Now it is in virtue of this 
correspondence that he is entitled to be called alive. 
So long as he is in correspondence with any given 
point of his environment, he lives. To keep up 
this correspondence is to keep up life. If his environ- 
ment changes he must instantly adjust himself to 
the change. And he continues living only as long 
as he succeeds in adjusting himself to the " simulta- 
neous and successive changes in his environment " as 
these occur. What is meant by a change in his 
environment may be understood from an example, 
which will at the same time define more clearly the 
intimacy of the relation between environment and 
organism. Let us take the case of a civil-servant 
whose environment is a district in India. It is a 
region subject to occasional and prolonged droughts 
resulting in periodical famines. When such a 
period of scarcity arises, he proceeds immediately to 
adjust himself to his external change. Having the 
power of locomotion, he may remove himself to a 
more fertile district, or, possessing the means of pur- 
chase, he may add to his old environment by im- 
portation the " external relations " necessary to 



154 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

continued life. But if from any cause he fails to 
adjust himself to the altered circumstances, his body 
is thrown out of correspondence with his environ- 
ment, his " internal relations " are no longer adjusted 
to his " external relations," and his life must cease. 

In ordinary circumstances, and in health, the hu- 
man organism is in thorough correspondence with its 
surroundings ; but when any part of the organism 
by disease or accident is thrown out of correspond- 
ence, it is in that relation dead. 

This Death, this want of correspondence may be 
either partial or complete. Part of the organism 
may be dead to a part of the environment, or the 
whole to the whole. Thus the victim of famine may 
have a certain number of his correspondences arrested 
by the change in his environment, but not all. 
Luxuries which he once enjoyed no longer enter the 
country, animals which once furnished his table are 
driven from it. These still exist, but they are 
beyond the limit of his correspondence. In relation 
to these things therefore he is dead. In one sense 
it might be said that it was the environment which 
played him false ; in another, that it was his own 
organization — that he was unable to adjust himself, 
or did not. But, however caused, he pays the 
penalty with partial Death. 

Suppose next the case of a man who is thrown 
out of correspondence with a part of his environ- 
ment by some physical infirmity. Let it be that by 
disease or accident he has been deprived of the use 
of his ears. The deaf man, in virtue of this imper- 



DEATH. 155 

fection, is thrown out of rapport with a large and 
well-defined part of the environment, namely, its 
sounds. With regard to that " external relation," 
therefore, he is no longer living. Part of him may 
truly be held to be insensible or " Dead." A man 
who is also blind is thrown out of correspondence 
with another large part of his environment. The 
beauty of sea and sky, the forms of cloud and moun- 
tain, the features and gestures of friends, are to him 
as if they were not. They are there, solid and real, 
but not to him ; he is still further " Dead." Next, 
let it be conceived, the subtle finger of cerebral dis- 
ease lays hold of him. His whole brain is affected, 
and the sensory nerves, the medium of communica- 
tion with the environment, cease altogether to ac- 
quaint him with what is doing in the outside world. 
The outside world is still there, but not to him ; he is 
still further " Dead." And so the death of parts 
goes on. He becomes less and less alive. " Were the 
animal frame not the complicated machine we have 
seen it to be, death might come as a simple and 
gradual dissolution, the ' sans everything ' being the 
last stage of the successive loss of fundamental 
powers," * But finally some important part of the 
mere animal framework that remains breaks down. 
The correlation with the other parts is very intimate, 
and the stoppage of correspondence with one means 
an interference with the work of the rest. Some- 
thing central has snapped, and all are thrown out of 
work. The lungs refuse to correspond with the air, 
* Foster's " Physiology," p. 642. 



156 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the heart with the blood. There is now no corre- 
spondence whatever with environment — the thing, 
for it is now a thing, is Dead. 

This then is Death ; " part of the framework breaks 
down," "something has snapped" — these phrases by 
which we describe the phases of death yield their 
full meaning. They are different ways of saying that 
" correspondence " has ceased. And the scientific 
meaning of Death now becomes clearly intelligible. 
Dying is that breakdown in an organism which 
throws it out of correspondence with some necessary 
part of the environment. Death is the result pro- 
duced, the want of correspondence. "We do not say 
that this is all that is involved. But this is the root 
idea of Death — Failure to adjust internal relations 
to external relations, failure to repair the broken 
inward connection sufficiently to enable it to corre- 
spond again with the old surroundings. These pre- 
liminary statements may be fiftly closed w T ith the 
words of Mr. Herbert Spencer : " Death by natural 
decay occurs because in old age the relations be- 
tween assimilation, oxidation, and genesis of force 
going on in the organism gradually fall out of corre- 
spondence with the relations between oxygen and 
food and absorption of heat by the environment. 
Death from disease arises either when the organism 
is congenitally defective in its power to balance the 
ordinary external actions by the ordinary internal 
actions, or when there has taken place some un- 
usual external action to which there was no answer- 
ing internal action. Death by accident implies some 



DEATH. 157 

neighboring mechanical changes of which the causes 
are either unnoticed from inattention, or are so in- 
tricate that their results cannot be foreseen, and con- 
sequently certain relations in the organism are not 
adjusted to the relations in the environment." * 

"With the help of these plain biological terms we 
may now proceed to examine the parallel phenome- 
non of Death in the spiritual world. The factors 
with which we have to deal are two in number as 
before — Organism and Environment. The relation 
between them may once more be denominated by 
"correspondence." And the truth to be emphasized 
resolves itself into this, that Spiritual Death is a 
want of correspondence between the organism and 
the spiritual environment. 

What is the spiritual environment? This term 
obviously demands some further definition. For 
Death is a relative term. And before we can define 
Death in the spiritual world we must first apprehend 
the particular relation with reference to which the 
expression is to be employed. We shall best reach 
the nature of this relation by considering for a 
moment the subject of environment generally. By 
the natural environment we mean the entire surround- 
ings of the natural man, the entire external world in 
which he lives and moves and has his being. It is 
not involved in the idea that either with all or part 
of this environment he is in immediate correspond- 
ence. Whether he corresponds with it or not, it is 
there. There is in fact a conscious environment and 
* Op. cit, pp. 88, 89, 



158 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

an environment of which he is not conscious; and it 
must be borne in mind that the conscious environ- 
ment is not all the environment that is. All that 
surrounds him, all that environs him, conscious or 
unconscious, is environment. The moon and stars 
are part of it, though in the daytime he may not see 
them. The polar regions are parts of it, though he 
is seldom aware of their influence. In its widest 
sense environment simply means all else that is. 

Now it will next be manifest that different organ- 
isms correspond with this environment in varying 
degrees of completeness or incompleteness. At the 
bottom of the biological scale we find organisms 
which have only the most limited correspondence 
with their surroundings. A tree, for example, cor- 
responds with the soil about its stem, with the sun- 
light, and with the air in contact with its leaves. 
But it is shut off by its comparatively low develop- 
ment from a whole world to which higher forms of 
life have additional access. The want of locomotion 
alone circumscribes most seriously its area of corre- 
spondence, so that to a large part of surrounding 
nature it may truly be said to be dead. So far as 
consciousness is concerned, we should be justified 
indeed in saying that it was not alive at all. The 
murmur of the stream which bathes its roots affects 
it not. The marvellous insect-life beneath its shadow 
excites in it no wonder. The tender maternity of 
the bird which has its nest among its leaves stirs 
no responsive sympathy. It cannot correspond with 
those things. To stream and insect and bird it 



DEATH. 159 

is insensible, torpid, dead. For this is Death, this 
irresponsiveness. 

The bird, again, which is higher in the scale of life, 
corresponds with a wider environment. The stream 
is real to it, and the insect. It knows what lies 
behind the hill; it listens to the love-song of its 
mate. And to much besides beyond the simple 
world of the tree this higher organism is alive. The 
bird we should say is more living than the tree ; it 
has a correspondence with a larger area of environ- 
ment. But this bird-life is not yet the highest life. 
Even within the immediate bird-environment there 
is much to which the bird must still be held to 
be dead. Introduce a higher organism, place man 
himself within this same environment, and see how 
much more living he is. A hundred things which 
the bird never saw in insect, stream and tree appeal 
to him. Each single sense has something to cor- 
respond with. Each faculty finds an appropriate 
exercise. Man is a mass of correspondences, and 
because of these, because he is alive to countless 
objects and influences to which lower organisms are 
dead, he is the most living of all creatures. 

The relativity of death will now have become 
sufficiently obvious. Man being left out of account, 
all organisms are seen as it were to be partly living 
and partly dead. The tree, in correspondence with 
a narrow area of environment, is to that extent alive ; 
to all beyond, to the all but infinite area beyond, it 
is dead. A still wider portion of this vast area is 
the possession of the insect and the bird. Theirs 



160 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

also, nevertheless, is but a little world, and to an 
immense further area insect and bird are dead. All 
organisms likewise are living and dead — living to all 
within the circumference of their correspondences, 
dead to all beyond. As we rise in the scale of life, 
however, it will be observed that the sway of Death 
is gradually weakened. More and more of the en- 
vironment becomes accessible as we ascend, and the 
domain of life in this way slowly extends in ever- 
widening circles. But until man appears there is no 
organism to correspond with the whole environment. 
Till then the outermost circles have no correspond- 
ents. To the inhabitants of the innermost spheres 
they are as if they were not. 

Now follows a momentous question. Is man in 
correspondence with the whole environment ? When 
we reach the highest living organism, is the final 
blow dealt to the kingdom of Death ? Has the last 
acre of the infinite area been taken in by his finite 
faculties ? Is his conscious environment the whole 
environment? Or is there, among these outermost 
circles, one which with his multitudinous correspond- 
ences, he fails to reach ? If so, this is Death. The 
question of Life or Death to him is the question 
of the amount of remaining environment he is able 
to compass. If there be one circle or one segment 
of a circle which he yet fails to reach, to correspond 
with, to know, to be influenced by, he is, with regard 
to that circle or segment, dead. 

What then, practically, is the state of the case ? 
Is man in correspondence with the whole environ- 



DEATH. 161 

merit or is he not ? There is but one answer. He 
is not. Of men generally it cannot be said that they 
are in living contact with that part of the environ- 
ment which is called the spiritual world. In intro- 
ducing this new term spiritual world, observe, we are 
not interpolating a new factor. This is an essential 
part of the old idea. We have been following out an 
ever-widening environment from point to point, and; 
now we reach the outermost zones. The spiritual' 
world is simply the outermost segment, circle, or§ 
circles, of the natural world. For purposes of con- 
venience we separate the two just as we separate the 
animal world from the plant. But the animal world 
and the plant world are the same world. They are 
different parts of one environment. And the natural 
and spiritual are likewise one. The inner circles 
are called the natural, the outer the spiritual. And 
we call them spiritual simply because they are 
beyond us or beyond a part of us. What we have 
correspondence with, that we call natural ; what we 
have little or no correspondence with, that we call 
spiritual. But when the appropriate corresponding 
organism appears, the organism, that is, which can 
freely communicate with these outer circles, the 
distinction necessarily disappears. The spiritual to 
it becomes the outer circle of the natural. 

Now of the great mass of living organisms, of the 
great mass of men, is it not to be affirmed that they 
are out of correspondence with this outer circle? 
Suppose, to make the final issue more real, we give 

this outermost circle of environment a name. Sup- 
11 



162 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

pose we call it God. Suppose also we substitute 
a word for " correspondence " to express more in- 
timately the personal relation. Let us call it Com- 
munion. We can now determine accurately the 
spiritual relation of different sections of mankind. 
Those who are in communion with God live, those 
who are not are dead. 

The extent or depth of this communion, the 
varying degrees of correspondence in different indi- 
viduals, and the less or more abundant life which 
these result in, need not concern us for the present. 
The task we have set ourselves is to investigate the 
essential nature of Spiritual Death. And we have 
found it to consist in a want of communion with God. 
The unspiritual man is he who lives in the circum- 
scribed environment of this present world. "She 
that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she liveth." 
" To be carnally minded is Death." To be carnally 
minded, translated into the language of science, is 
to be limited in one's correspondences to the environ- 
ment of the natural man. It is no necessary part 
of the conception that the mind should be either 
purposely irreligious, or directly vicious. The mind 
of the flesh, dpovypia. rrj? dapxds, by its very nature, 
limited capacity, and time-ward tendency, is tfavaro?, 
Death. This earthly mind may be of noble calibre, 
enriched by culture, high toned, virtuous and pure. 
But if it know not God ? What though its cor- 
respondences reach to the stars of heaven or grasp 
the magnitudes of Time and Space ? The stars of 
heaven are not heaven. Space is not God. This 



DEATH. 163 

mind, certainly, has life, life up to its level. There 
is no trace of Death. Possibly, too, it carries its 
deprivation lightly, and, up to its level, lives content. 
We do not picture the possessor of this carnal mind 
as in any sense a monster. We have said he may be 
high-toned, virtuous, and pure. The plant is not a 
monster because it is dead to the voice of the bird ; 
nor is he a monster who is dead to the voice of God. 
The contention at present simply is that he is Dead. 
We do not need to go to Revelation for the proof 
of this. That has been rendered unnecessary by the 
testimony of the Dead themselves. Thousands have 
uttered themselves upon their relation to the Spiritual 
World, and from their own lips we have the procla- 
mation of their Death. The language of theology in 
describing the state of the natural man is often 
regarded as severe. The Pauline anthropology has 
been challenged as an insult to human nature. 
Culture has opposed the doctrine that " The natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 
And even some modern theologies have refused to 
accept the most plain of the aphorisms of Jesus, that 
" Except a man be born again he cannot see the 
Kingdom of God." But this stern doctrine of the 
spiritual deadness of humanity is no mere dogma of 
a past theology. The history of thought during the 
present century proves that the world has come 
round spontaneously to the position of the first. 
One of the ablest philosophical schools of the day 



164 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

erects a whole antichristian system on this very 
doctrine. Seeking by means of it to sap the found- 
ation of spiritual religion, it stands unconsciously as 
the most significant witness for its truth. What is 
the creed of the Agnostic, but the confession of the 
spiritual numbness of humanity? The negative 
doctrine which it reiterates with such sad persistency 
what is it but the echo of the oldest of scientific and 
religious truths? And what are all these gloomy 
and rebellious infidelities, these touching, and too 
sincere confessions of universal nescience, but a pro- 
test against this ancient law of Death ? 

The Christian apologist never further misses the 
mark than when he refuses the testimony of the 
Agnostic to himself. "When the Agnostic tells me 
he is blind and deaf, dumb, torpid and dead to the 
spiritual world, I must believe him. Jesus tells me 
that. Paul tells me that. Science tells me that. 
He knows nothing of this outermost circle ; and we 

are compelled to trust his sincerity as readily when 
he deplores it as if, being a man without an ear, he 
professed to know nothing of a musical world, or 
being without taste, of a world of art. The nescience 
of the agnostic philosophy is the proof from ex- 
perience that to be carnally minded is Death. Let 
the theological value of the concession be duly recog- 
nized. It brings no solace to the un spiritual man 
to be told he is mistaken. To say he is self- deceived 
is neither to compliment him nor Christianity. He 
builds in all sincerity who raises his altar to the 
Unknown God. He does not know God. With all 



DEATH. 165 

his marvellous and complex correspondences, he is 
still one correspondence short. 

It is a point worthy of special note that the pro- 
clamation of this truth has always come from science 
rather than from religion. Its general acceptance 
by thinkers is based upon the universal failure of a 
universal experiment. The statement, therefore, that 
the natural man discerneth not the things of the 
spirit, is never to be charged against the intolerance 
of theology. There is no point at which theology 
has been more' modest than here. It has left the 
preaching of a great fundamental truth almost 
entirety to philosophy and science. And so very 
moderate has been its tone, so slight has been the 
emphasis placed upon the paralysis of the natural 
with regard to the spiritual, that it may seem to 
some to have been intolerantly tolerant. No harm 
certainly could come now, no offence could be given 
to science, if religion asserted more clearly its right. 
to the spiritual w T orld. Science has paved the way 
for the reception of one of the most revolutionary 
doctrines of Christianity ; and if Christianity refuses 
to take advantage of the opening it will manifest a 
culpable want of confidence in itself. There never 
was a time wdien its fundamental doctrines could 
more boldly be proclaimed, or when they could 
better secure the respect and arrest the interest of 
Science. 

To all this, and apparently with force, it may, 
however, be objected that to every man who truly 
studies Nature there is a God. Call Him by what- 



166 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ever name — a Creator, a Supreme Being, a Great 
First Cause, a Power, that makes for Righteousness — 
Science has a God ; and he who believes in this, in 
spite of all protest, possesses a theology. " If we 
will. look at things, and not merelv at words, w r e 
shall soon see that the scientific man has a theology 
and a God, a most impressive theology, a most awful 
and glorious God. I say that man believes in a 
God, who feels himself in the presence of a Power 
which is not himself, and is immeasurably above 
himself, a Power in the contemplation of which he 
is absorbed, in the knowledge of which he finds 
safety and happiness. And such now is Mature to 
the scientific man." * Such n'ow, Ave humbly submit, 
is Nature to very few. Their own confession is 
against it. That they are " absorbed " in the con- 
templation we can well believe. That they might 
"find safety and happiness" in the knowledge of 
Him is also possible — if they had it. But this is 
just what they tell us they have not. What they 
deny is not a God. It is the correspondence. The 
very confession of the Unknowable is itself the dull 
recognition of an Environment beyond themselves, 
and for which they feel they lack the correspondence. 
It is this want that makes their God the Unknown 
God. And it is this that makes them dead. 

We have not said, or implied, that there is not a 

God of Nature. We have not affirmed that there 

is no Natural Religion. We are assured there is. 

We are even assured that without a Religion of 

* " Natural Religion," p. 19, 



DEATH. 167 

Nature Religion is only half complete; that without 
a God of Nature the God of Revelation is only half 
intelligible and only partially known. God is not 
confined to the outermost circle of environment, He 
lives and moves and has his being in the whole. 
Those who only seek Him in the further zone can 
only find a part. The Christian who knows not 
God in Nature, who does not, that is to say, corre- 
spond with the whole environment, most certainly is 
partially dead. The author of " Ecce Homo " may 
be partially right when he says : " I think a by- 
stander would say that though Christianity had in 
it something far higher and deeper and more en- 
nobling, yet the average scientific man worships 
just at present a more awful, and, as it were, a 
greater Deity than the average Christian. In so 
many Christians the idea of God has been degraded 
by childish and little-minded teaching; the Eternal 
and the Infinite and the All-embracing has been 
represented as the head of the clerical interest, as 
a sort of clergyman, as a sort of schoolmaster, as a 
sort of philanthropist. But thescientific man knows 
Him to be eternal ; in astronomy, in geology, he be- 
comes familiar with the countless millenniums of 
His life-time. The scientific man strains his mind 
actually to realize God's infinit\ r . As far off as the 
fixed stars he traces Him, 'distance inexpressible by 
numbers that have name.' Meanwhile, to the theo- 
logian, infinity and eternity are very much of empty 
words when applied to the Object of his worship. 
He does not realize them in actual facts and definite 



168 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

computations."* Let us accept this rebuke. The 
principle that want of correspondence is Death ap- 
plies all round. He who knows not God in Nature 
only partially lives. The converse of this, however, 
is not true ; and that is the point we are insisting on. 
He who knows God only in Nature lives not. 
There is no "correspondence" with an Unknown 
God, no " continuous adjustment " to a fixed First 
Cause. There is no " assimilation " of Natural Law ; 
no growth in the Image of "the All-embracing." 
To correspond with the God of Science assuredly is 
not to live. " This is Life Eternal to know Thee, 
the true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast 
sent." 

From the service we have tried to make natural 
science render to our religion, we might be expected 
possibly to take up the position that the absolute 
contribution of Science to Revelation was very great. 
On the contrary, it is very small. The absolute con- 
tribution, that is, is very small. The contribution on 
the whole is immense, vaster than we have yet any 
idea of. But without the aid of the higher Revela- 
tion this many-toned and far-reaching voice had been 
forever dumb. The light of Nature, say the most 
for it, is dim — how dim we ourselves, with the glare 
of other Light upon the modern world, can only 
realize when we seek among the pagan records of 
the past for the gropings after truth of those whose 
only light was this. Powerfully significant and 
touching as these efforts were in their success, they 
* " Natural Religion," p. 20. 



DEATH. 169 

are far more significant and touching in their failure. 
For they did fail. It requires no philosophy now to 
speculate on the adequacy or inadequacy of the Re- 
ligion of Nature! For us who could never weigh it 
rightly in the scales of Truth it has been tried in the 
balance of experience and found wanting. Theism 
is the easiest of all religions to get, but the most 
difficult to keep. Individuals have kept it, but na- 
tions never. Socrates and Aristotle, Cicero and 
Epictetus had a theistic religion ; Greece and Rome 
had none. And even after getting what seems like 
a firm place in the minds of men, its unstable equili- 
brium sooner or later betrays itself. On the one 
hand theism has always fallen into the wildest poly- 
theism, or on the other into the blankest atheism. 
" It is an indubitable historical fact that, outside of 
the sphere of special revelation, man has never ob- 
tained such a knowledge of God as responsible and 
religious being plainly requires. The wisdom of the 
heathen world, at its very best, was utterly inade- 
quate to the accomplishment of such a task as creat_ 
i'ng a due abhorrence of sin, controlling the passions, 
purifying the heart and ennobling the conduct." * 

What is the inference % That this poor rush-light 
by itself was never meant to lend the ray by which 
man should read the riddle of the universe. The 
mystery is too impenetrable and remote for its un- 
certain flicker to more than make the darkness 
deeper. What indeed if this were not a light at all, 
but only part of a light — the carbon point, the frag- 
* Prof. Flint, " Theism," p. 305. 



170 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ment of calcium, the reflector in the great Lantern 
which contains the Light of the World? 

This is one inference. Bat the most important is 
that the absence of the true Light means moral 
Death. The darkness of the natural world to the 
intellect is not all. What history testifies to is, first 
the partial, and then the total eclipse of virtue that 
always follows the abandonment of belief in a per- 
sonal God. It is not, as has been pointed out a 
hundred times, that morality in the abstract dis- 
appears, but the motive and sanction are gone. 
There is nothing to raise it from the dead. Man's 
attitude to it is left to himself. Grant that morals 
have their own base in human life ; grant that 
Nature has a Religion whose creed is Science ; there 
is yet nothing apart from God to save the world 
from moral Death. Morality has the power to dic- 
tate but none to move. Nature directs but cannot 
control. As was wisely expressed in one of many 
pregnant utterances during a recent Symposium, 
" Though the decay of religion may leave the insti- 
tutes of morality intact, it drains off their inward 
power. The devout faith of men expresses and 
measures the intensity of their moral nature, and it 
cannot be lost without a remission of enthusiasm, 
and under this low pressure, the successful reentrance 
of importunate desires and clamorous passions which 
have been driven back. To believe in an ever-living 
and perfect Mind, supreme over the universe, is to 
invest moral distinctions with immensity and eter- 
nity, and lift them from the provincial stage of 



DEATH. 171 

human society to the imperishable theatre of all 
being. When planted thus in the very substance of 
things, they justify and support the ideal estimates 
of the conscience ; they deepen every guilty shame ; 
they guarantee every righteous hope ; and they help 
the will with a Divine casting-vote in every balance 
of temptation." * That morality has a basis in hu- 
man society, that Nature has a Religion, surely 
makes the Death of the soul when left to itself all 
the more appalling. It means that, between them, 
Nature and morality provide all for virtue — except 
the Life to live it. 

It is at this point accordingly that our subject 
comes into intimate contact with Beligion. The 
proposition that u to be carnally minded is Death " 
even the moralist will assent to. But when it is 
further announced that " the carnal mind is enmity 
against God" we find ourselves in a different region. 
And when we find it also stated that " the wages of 
sin is Death," we are in the heart of the profound- 
est questions of theology. "What before was merely 
" enmity against society " becomes " enmity against 
God ; " and what was " vice " is " sin." The con- 
ception of a God gives an altogether new color to 
worldliness and vice. Worldliness it changes into 
heathenism, vice into blasphemy. The carnal mind, 
the mind which is turned away from God, which will 
not correspond with God — this is not moral only 

* Martineau. Vide the whole Symposium on "The Influ- 
ences upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Beliefs," Nine- 
teenth Century, vol. i., pp. 331, 531. 



172 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

but spiritual Death. And Sin, that which separates 
from God, which disobeys God, which can not in 
that state correspond with God — this is hell. 

To the estrangement of the soul from God the best 
of theology traces the ultimate cause of sin. Sin is 
simply apostasy from God, unbelief in God. " Sin 
is manifest in its true character when the demand of 
holiness in the conscience, presenting itself to the 
man as one of loving submission to God, is put from 
him with aversion. Here sin appears as it really is, 
a turning away from God ; and while the man's guilt 
is enhanced, there ensues a benumbing of the heart 
resulting from the crushing of those higher impulses. 
This is what is meant by the reprobate state of those 
who reject Christ and will not believe the Gospel, 
so often spoken of in the IJew Testament ; this un- 
belief is just the closing of the heart against the 
highest love." * The other view of sin, probably 
the more popular at present, that sin consists in 
selfishness, is merely this from another aspect. Ob- 
viously if the mind turns away from one part of the 
environment it will only do so under some tempta- 
tion to correspond with another. This temptation, 
at bottom, can only come from one source — the 
love of self. The irreligious man's correspondences 
are concentrated upon himself. He worships him- 
self. Self-gratification rather than self-denial ; in- 
dependence rather than submission — these are the 
rules of life. And this is at once the poorest and 
the commonest form of idolatry. 

* Muller ; '< Christian Doctrine of Sin." 2d Ed., vol i. p. 
131. 



DEATH. 173 

But whichever of these views of sin we emphasize 
we find both equally connected with Death. If sin 
is estrangement from God, this very estrangement 
is Death. It is a want of correspondence. If sin is 
selfishness, it is conducted at the expense of life. 
Its wages are Death — "he that loveth his life," said 
Christ, " shall lose it" 

Yet the paralysis of the moral nature apart from 
God does not only depend for its evidence upon 
theology or even upon history. From the analogies 
of Nature one would expect this result as a necessary 
consequence. The development of any organism in 
any direction is dependent on its environment. A 
living cell cut off from air will die. A seed-germ 
apart from moisture and an appropriate temperature 
will make the ground its grave for centuries. Human 
nature, likewise, is subject to similar conditions. It 
can only develop in presence of its environment. No 
matter what its possibilities may be, no matter what 
seeds of thought or virtue, what germs of genius or 
of art, lie latent in its breast, until the appropriate 
environment presents itself the correspondence is 
denied, the development discouraged, the most 
splendid possibilities of life remain unrealized, and 
thought and virtue, genius and art, are dead. The 
true environment of the moral life is God. Here 
conscience wakes. Here kindles love. Duty here 
becomes heroic; and that righteousness begins to 
live which alone is to live forever. But if this Atmos- 
phere is not, the dwarfed soul must perish for mere 
want of its native air. And its Death is a strictly 



174 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

natural Death. It is not an exceptional judgment 
upon Atheism. In the same circumstances, in the 
same averted relation to their environment, the poet, 
the musician, the artist, would alike perish to poetry, 
to music, and to art. Every environment is a cause. 
Its effect upon me is exactly proportionate to my 
correspondence with it. If I correspond with part of 
it, part of myself is influenced. If I correspond with 
more, more of myself is influenced ; if with all, all is 
influenced. If I correspond with the world, I become 
worldly ; if with God, I become Divine. As without 
correspondence of the scientific man with the natural 
environment there could be no Science and no action 
founded on the knowledge of Nature, so without 
communion with the spiritual Environment there can 
be no Religion. To refuse to cultivate the religious 
relation is to deny to the soul its highest right — the 
right to a further evolution.* 

We have already admitted that he who knows 

* It would not be difficult to show, were this the immediate 
subject, that it is not only a right but a duty to exercise the 
spiritual faculties, a duty demanded not by religion merely, 
but by science. Upon biological principles man owes his full 
development to himself, to nature, and to his fellow-men. 
Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, " The performance of 
every function is, in a sense, a moral obligation. It is usually 
thought that morality requires us only to restrain such vital 
activities as, in our present state, are often pushed to excess, 
or such as conflict with average welfare, special or general ; 
but it also requires us to carry on these vital activities up to 
their normal limits. All the animal functions, in common 
with all the higher functions, have, as thus understood, their 
imperativeness."—" The Data of Ethics," 2d Ed., p. 76. 



DEATH. 175 

not God may not be a monster ; we cannot say he 
will not be a dwarf. This precisely, and on perfectly 
natural principles, is what he must be. You can 
dwarf a soul just as you can dwarf a plant, by de- 
priving it of a full environment. Such a soul for a 
time may have " a name to live." Its character may 
betray no sign of atrophjr. But its very virtue 
somehow has the pallor of a flower that is grown in 
darkness, or as the herb which has never seen the sun 
no fragrance breathes from its spirit. To morality, 
possibly, this organism offers the example of an 
irreproachable life ; but to science it is an instance of 
arrested development ; and to religion it presents the 
spectacle of a corpse — a living Death. With Ruskin, 
" I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder 
often at what they lose." 



MORTIFICATION. 



"If by tying its main artery, we stop most of the 
blood going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb per- 
forms its function, those parts which are called into play 
must be wasted faster than they are repaired: whence 
eventual disablement. The relation between due receipt 
of nutritive matters through Us arteries, and due dis- 
charge of its duties by the limb, is a part of the physical 
order. If instead of cutting off the supply to a particular 
limb, we bleed the patient largely, so drafting away the 
materials needed for repairing not one limb but all limbs, 
and not limbs only but viscera, there residts both a mus- 
cular debility and an eyifeeblement of the vital functions. 
Here, again, cause and effect are necessarily related. . . . 
JPass now to those actions more comrr\only thought of as 
the occasions for rules of conduct." 

Heebeet Spenceb, 



MORTIFICATION. 

"Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth." 

—Paul. 

" O Star-eyed Science ! hast thou wandered there ' 
To waft us home the message of despair ?— Campbell. 

The definition of Death which science has given us 
is this : A falling out of correspondence with environ- 
ment. When, for example, a man loses the sight 
of his eyes, his correspondence with the environing 
world is curtailed. His life is limited in an impor- 
tant direction ; he is less living than he was before. 
If, in addition, he lose the senses of touch and hear- 
ing, his correspondences are still further limited ; 
he is therefore still further dead. And when all 
possible correspondences have ceased, when the 
nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, when the 
lungs close their gates against the air, when the heart 
refuses to correspond with the blood by so much as 
another beat, the insensate corpse is wholly and for- 
ever dead. The soul, in like manner, which has no 
correspondence with the spiritual environment is 
spiritually dead. It may be that it never possessed 
the spiritual eye or the spiritual-ear, or a heart which 
throbbed in response to the love of God. If so, 
having never lived, it cannot be said to have died. 

179 



180 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Bat not to have these correspondences is to be in 
the state of Death. To the spiritual world, to the 
Divine Environment, it is dead — as a stone which 
has never lived is dead to the environment of the 
organic world. 

Having already abundantly illustrated this use of 
the symbol Death, we may proceed to deal with 
another class of expressions where the same term is 
employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is a 
proof of the radical nature of religion that a word 
so extreme should have to be used again and again 
in Christian teaching, to define in different directions 
the true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto 
we have concerned ourselves with the condition of 
the natural man with regard to the spiritual world. 
"YVe have now to speak of the relations of the spiritual 
man with regard to the natural world. Carrying 
with us the same essential principle — want of corre- 
spondence — underlying the meaning of Death, we 
shall find that the relation of the spiritual man to the 
natural world, or at least to part of it, is to be that 
of Death. 

When the natural man becomes the spiritual man, 
the great change is described by Christ as a passing 
from Death unto Life. Before the transition 
occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get 
into correspondence with the new Endowment ? But 
no sooner is this correspondence established than the 
problem is reversed. The question now is how to 
get out of correspondence with the old environ- 
ment? The moment the new life is begun there 



MORTIFICATION. 181 

comes a genuine anxiety to break with the old. For 
the former environment has now become embarrass- 
ing. It refuses its dismissal from consciousness. 
It competes doggedly with the new Environment 
for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred 
ways the former traditions, the memories and pas- 
sions of the past, the fixed associations and habits 
of the earlier life, now complicate the new relation. 
The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself 
in correspondence with two environments, each with 
urgent but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual 
soul living in a double world, a world whose inhab- 
itants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual 
civil- war. 

The position of things is perplexing. It is clear 
that no man can attempt to live both lives. To 
walk both in the flesh and in the spirit is morally 
impossible. " No man," as Christ so often empha- 
sized, " can serve two masters." And yet, as matter 
of fact, here is the new-born being in communication 
with both environments ? With sin and purity, 
light and darkness, time and Eternity, God and 
Devil, the confused and undecided soul is now in 
correspondence. What is to be done in such an 
emergency ? How can the New Life deliver itself 
from the still persistent past ? 

A ready solution of the difficulty would be to die. 
Were one to die organically, to die and " go to 
heaven," all correspondence with the lower environ- 
ment would be arrested at a stroke. For Physical 
Death of course simply means the final stoppage of 



182 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

all natural correspondences with this sinful world. 
But this alternative, fortunately or unfortunately, 
is not open. The detention here of body and spirit 
for a given period is determined for us, and we are 
morally bound to accept the situation. We must 
look then for a further alternative. 

Actual Death being denied us, we must ask our- 
selves if there is nothing else resembling it — no 
artificial relation, no imitation or semblance of Death 
which would serve our purpose. If we cannot yet die 
absolutely, surely the next best thing will be to find a 
temporary substitute. If we cannot die altogether, 
in short, the most we can do is to die as much as we 
can. And we now know this is open to us, and 
how. To die to any environment is to withdraw cor- 
respondence with it, to cut ourselves off, so far as 
possible, from all communication with it. So that 
the solution of the problem will simply be this, for 
the spiritual life to reverse continuously the pro- 
cesses of the natural life. The spiritual man having 
passed from Death unto Life, the natural man must 
next proceed to pass from Life unto Death. Having 
opened the new set of correspondences, he must de- 
liberately close up the old. Regeneration in short 
must be accompanied by Degeneration. 

Now it is no surprise to find that this is the pro- 
cess everywhere described and recommended by the 
founders of the Christian system. Their proposal to 
the natural man, or rather to the natural part of the 
spiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inim- 
ical relations, is precisely this. If he cannot really 



MORTIFICATION. 183 

die, he must make an adequate approach to it by 
"reckoning himself dead." Seeing that, until the 
cycle of his organic life is complete he cannot die 
physically, he must meantime die morally, reckon- 
ing himself morallv dead to that environment which, 
by competing for his correspondences, has now 
become an obstacle to his spiritual life. 

The variety of ways in which the New Testament 
writers insist upon this somewhat extraordinary 
method is sufficiently remarkable. And although the 
idea involved is essentially the same throughout, it 
will clearly illustrate the nature of the act if we 
examine separately three different modes of expres- 
sion employed in the later Scriptures in this connec- 
tion. The methods by which the spiritual man is to 
withdraw himself from the old environment — or 
from that part of it which will directly hinder the 
Spiritual life — are three in number : — 

First, Suicide. 
Second, Mortification. 
Third, Limitation. 

It will be found in practice that these different 
methods are adapted, respectively, to meet three 
different forms of temptation ; so that we possess a 
sufficient warrant for giving a brief separate treat- 
ment to each. 

First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phraseology, 
the advice of Paul to the Christian, with regard to a 
part of his nature, is to commit suicide. If the Chris- 



184: NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, 

tian is to " live unto God," he must " die unto sin." 
If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. 
Recognizing this, he mast set himself to reduce the 
number of his correspondences — retaining and de- 
veloping those which lead to a fuller life, uncondition- 
ally withdrawing those which in any way tend in an 
opposite direction. This stoppage of correspond- 
ences is a voluntary act, a crucifixion of the flesh, a 
suicide. 

Now the least experience of life will make it evi- 
dent that a large class of sins can only be met, as 
it were, by Suicide. The peculiar feature of Death 
by Suicide is that it is not only self-inflicted but 
sudden. And there are many sins which must either 
be dealt with suddenly or not at all. Under this 
category, for instance, are to be included generally 
all sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, 
from their peculiar nature, can only be treated by 
methods less abrupt, but the sudden operation of the 
knife is the only successful means of dealing with 
fleshly sins. For example, the correspondence of 
the drunkard with his wine is a thing which can be 
broken off by degrees only in the rarest cases. To 
attempt it gradually may in an isolated case succeed, 
but even then the slightly prolonged gratification is 
no compensation for the slow torture of a gradually 
diminishing indulgence. "If thine appetite offend 
thee cut it off," may seem at first but a harsh 
remedy ; but when we contemplate on the one hand 
the lingering pain of the gradual process, on the 
other its constant peril, we are compelled to admit 



MORTIFICATION. 1 85 

that the principle is as kind as it is wise. The ex- 
pression " total abstinence " in such a case is a strictly 
biological formula. It implies the sudden destruc- 
tion of a definite portion of environment by the total 
withdrawal of all the connecting links. Obviously 
of course total abstinence ought thus to be allowed 
a much wider application than to cases of "intemper- 
ance." It is the only decisive method of dealing 
with any sin of the flesh. The very nature of the 
relations makes it absolutely imperative that every 
victim of unlawful appetite, in whatever direction, 
shall totally abstain. Hence Christ's apparently 
extreme and peremptory language defines the only 
possible, as well as the only charitable, expedient : 
" If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee. And if thy right hand offend thee, 
cut it off, and cast ifc from thee." 

The humanity of what is called " sudden conver- 
sion " has never been insisted on as it deserves. In 
discussing " Biogenesis" * it has been already pointed 
out that while growth is a slow and gradual process 
the change from Death to Life alike in the natural 
and spiritual spheres is the work of a moment. 
Whatever the conscious hour of the second birth may 
be — in the case of an adult it is probably defined by 
the first real victory over sin — it is certain that on 
biological principles the real turning-point is literally 
a moment. But on moral and humane grounds this 
misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised doc- 
trine is equalty capable of defence. Were any re- 

* Page 103. 



186 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

former, with an adequate knowledge of human life, to 
sit down and plan a scheme for the salvation of sinful 
men, he would probably come to the conclusion that 
the best way after all, perhaps indeed the only way, 
to turn a sinner from the error of his ways would be 
to do it suddenly. 

Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off one 
portion from his usual allowance the first week, an- 
other the second, and so on! Or suppose at first 
he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the 
evenings, then every second evening, then only on 
Saturday nights, and finally only every Christmas? 
How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reduced 
the number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by 
gradually diminishing the number of his blows? 
The argument ends with an ad ahsurdum. " Let him 
that stole steal no more" is the only feasible, the only 
moral, and the only humane Avay. This may not 
apply to every case, but when any part of man's 
sinful life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide, to 
make him reach the end, even were it possible, by a 
lingering death, would be a monstrous cruelty. And 
yet it is this very thing in " sudden conversion," that 
men object to — the sudden change, the decisive 
stand, the uncompromising rupture with the past, the 
precipitate flight from sin as of one escaping for his 
life. Men surely forget that this is an escaping for 
one's life. Let the poor prisoner run — madly and 
blindly if he likes, for the terror of Death is upon 
him. God knows, when the pause comes, how the 
chains will gall him still. 



MORTIFICATION. 1ST 

It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as a 
general rule men are linked to evil mainly by a 
single correspondence. Few men break the whole 
law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough 
to make us guilty of all, and the restraints of cir- 
cumstances are usually such as to leave a loophole 
in the life of each individual for only a single 
habitual sin. But it is very easy to see how this 
reduction of our intercourse with evil to a single 
correspondence blinds us to our true position. Our 
correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and 
in our calculations as to our spiritual condition we 
emphasize the many negatives rather than the single 
positive. One little weakness we are apt to fancy, 
all men must be allowed, and we even claim a cer- 
tain indulgence for that apparent necessity of nature 
which we call our besetting sin. Yet to break with 
the lower environment at all, to many, is to break 
at this single point. It is the only important point 
at which thev touch it, circumstances or natural 
disposition making habitual contact at other places 
impossible. The sinful environment, in short, to 
them means a small but well-defined area. Now if 
contact at this point be not broken off, they are 
virtually in contact still with the whole environment. 
There may be only one avenue between the new life 
and the old, it may be but a small and mcbterranean 
passage, but this is sufficient to keep the old life in. 
So long as that remains the victim is not " dead 
unto sin," and therefore he cannot "live unto God." 
Hence the reasonableness of the words^ " Whosoever 



188 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

shall keep the whole law, and yet offend at one point, 
he is guilty of all." In the natural world it only 
requires a single vital correspondence of the body to 
be out of order to ensure Death. It is not necessary 
to have consumption, diabetes, and aneurism to 
bring the body to the grave if it have heart-disease. 
He who is fatally diseased in one organ necessarily 
pays the penalty with his life, though all the others 
be in perfect health. And such, likewise, are the 
nrvsterious unity and correlations of functions in the 
spiritual organism that the disease of one member 
may involve the ruin of the whole. The reason, 
therefore, with which Christ follows up the announce- 
ment of His Doctrine of Mutilation, or local Suicide, 
finds here at once its justification and interpretation : 
" If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee :for it is profitable for thee that one of 
thy members should perish, and not that thy whole 
body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand 
offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee \ for it is 
profitable for thee that one of thy members should 
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast 
into hell." 

Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for the use 
of this expression is found in the well-known phrases 
of Paul, " If ye through the Spirit do mortify the 
deeds of the body ye shall live," and " Mortif y there- 
fore your members which are upon earth." The 
word mortify here is, literally, to make to die. It is 
used, of course, in no specially technical sense ; and 
to attempt to draw a detailed moral from the path- 



MOETIFICATION. 189 

ology of mortification would be equally fantastic and 
irrelevant. But without in any way straining the 
meaning it is obvious that we have here a slight 
addition to our conception of dying to sin. In con- 
trast with suicide, Mortification implies a gradual 
rather than a sudden process. The contexts in which 
the passages occur will make this meaning so clear, 
and are otherwise so instructive in the general connec- 
tion, that we may quote them, from the New Version, 
at length : " They that are after the flesh do mind 
the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the 
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the 
flesh is death ; but the mind of the Spirit is life and 
peace : because the mind of the flesh is enmity 
against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, 
neither indeed can it be : and they that are in the 
flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the 
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of 
God dwell in you. But if any man hath not the 
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ 
is in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the 
Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the 
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from 
the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies 
through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. So then, 
brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live 
after the flesh : for if ye live after the flesh ye must 
die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the doings 
(marg.) of the body, ye shall live." * 

* Rom. viii. 5-13. 



190 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

And again, " If then ye were raised together with 
Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ 
is seated on the ri^ht hand of God. Set vour mind 
on the things that are above, not on the things that 
are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is 
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our 
life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him 
be manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your 
members which are upon the earth ; fornication, un- 
cleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, the 
which is idolatry ; for which things' sake cometh 
the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience ; 
in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived 
in these things. But now put ye also away all 
these ; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speak- 
ing out of your mouth : lie not one to another ; see- 
ing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, 
and have put on the new man, which is being re- 
newed unto knowledge after the image of Him that 
created him." * 

From the nature of the case as here stated it is 
evident that no sudden process could entirely transfer 
a man from the old into the new relation. To break 
altogether, and at every point, with the old environ- 
ment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the 
regenerate man is kept in this world, he must find 
the old environment at many points a severe temp- 
tation. Power over very many of the commonest 
temptations is only to be won by degrees, and how- 
ever anxious one might be to apply the summary 

* Col. iii. 1-10. 



MORTIFICATION. 191 

method to every case, he soon finds it impossible in 
practice. The difficulty in these cases arises from a 
peculiar feature of the temptation. The difference 
between a sin of drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin 
of temper, is that in the former case the victim who 
would reform has mainly to deal with the environ- 
ment, but in the latter with the correspondence. 
The drunkard's temptation is a known and definite 
quantity. His safety lies in avoiding some external 
and material substance. Of course, at bottom, he is 
really dealing with the correspondence every time he 
resists ; he is distinctly controlling appetite. Never- 
theless it is less the appetite that absorbs his mind 
than the environment. And so long as he can keep 
himself clear of the " external relation," to use Mr. 
Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he has much less dif- 
ficulty with the " internal relation." The ill-tempered 
person, on the other hand, can make very little of his 
environment. However he may attempt to circum- 
scribe it in certain directions, there will always re- 
main a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate 
his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an in- 
constant quantity, and his most elaborate calcula- 
tions and precautions must often and suddenly fail 
him. 

What he has to deal with, then, mainly is the 
correspondence, the temper itself. And that, he 
well knows, involves a long and humiliating dis- 
cipline. The case now is not at all a surgical but 
a medical one, and the knife is here of no more use 
than in a fever. A specific irritant has poisoned his 



192 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

veins. And the acrid humors that are breaking out 
all over the surface of his life are only to be subdued 
by a gradual sweetening of the inward spirit. It is 
now known that the human body acts towards certain 
fever-germs as a sort of soil. The man whose blood 
is pure has nothing to fear. So he whose spirit is 
purified and sweetened becomes proof against these 
germs of sin. " Anger, wrath, malice and railing " 
in such a soil can find no root. 

The difference between this and the former method 
of dealing with sin may be illustrated by another 
analogy. The two processes depend upon two 
different natural principles. The mutilation of a 
member, for instance, finds its analogue in the horti- 
cultural operation of pruning, where the object is to 
divert life from a useless into a useful channel. A 
part of a plant which previously monopolized a large 
share of the vigor of the total organism, but with- 
out yielding any adequate return, is suddenly cut off, 
so that the vital processes may proceed more actively 
in some fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is 
well-known : " Every branch in Me that beareth not 
fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth more 
fruit." The strength of the plant, that is, being given 
to the formation of mere wood, a number of useless 
correspondences have to be abruptly closed while the 
useful connections are allowed to remain. The 
Mortification of a member, again, is based on the Law 
of Degeneration. The useless member here is not 
cut off, but simply relieved as much as possible of all 
exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of the 



MORTIFICATION. 193 

parts, and as it is more and more neglected it ceases 
to be a channel for life at all. So an organism 
" mortifies " its members. 

Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number of 
correspondences between man and his environment 
can be stopped in these ways, there are many more 
which neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortifi- 
cation nor cut short by sudden Death. One reason 
for this is that to tamper with these correspondences 
might involve injury to closely related vital parts. 
Or, again, there are organs which are really essential 
to the moral life of the organism, and which there- 
fore the organism cannot afford to lose even though 
at times they act prejudicially. ISTot a few corre- 
spondences, for instance, are not wrong in themselves 
but only in their extremes. Up to a certain point 
they are lawful and necessary ; beyond that point 
they may become not only unnecessary but sinful. 
The appropriate treatment in these and similar cases 
consists in a process of Limitation. The perform- 
ance of this operation, it must be confessed, requires 
a most delicate hand. It is an art, moreover, which 
no one can teach another. And yet, if it is not 
learned b3 r all who are trying to lead the Christian 
life, it cannot be for want of practice. For, as we 
shall see, the Christian is called upon to exercise few 
things more frequently. 

An easy illustration of a correspondence which is 

only wrong when carried to an extreme, is the love 

of money. The love of money up to a certain point 

is a necessity ; beyond that it may become one of 

13 



194 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the worst of sins. Christ said : " Ye cannot serve 
God and Mammon." The two services, at a definite 
point, become incompatible, and hence correspond- 
ence with one must cease. At what point, however, 
it must cease each man has to determine for himself. 
And in this consists at once the difficulty and the 
dignity of Limitation. 

There is another class of cases where the adjust- 
ments are still more difficult to determine. Innumer- 
able points exist in our surroundings with which it 
is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and even to cultivate, 
correspondence, but which privilege, at the same 
time, it were better on the whole that we did not 
use. Circumstances are occasionally such — the de- 
mands of others upon us, for example, may be so 
clamant — that we have voluntarily to reduce the area 
of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead of it coming from 
others, the claim may come from a still higher 
direction. Man's spiritual life consists in the number 
and fulness of his correspondences with God. In 
order to develop these he may be constrained to 
insulate them, to enclose them from the other cor- 
respondences, to shut himself in with them. In 
many ways the limitation of the natural life is the 
necessary condition of the full enjoyment of the 
spiritual life. 

In this principle lies the true philosophy of self- 
denial. No man is called to a life of self-denial for 
its own sake. It is in order to a compensation which, 
though sometimes difficult to see, is always real and 
always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in prac- 



MORTIFICATION. 195 

tical religion is more lost sight of. We cherish 
somehow a lingering rebellion against the doctrine of 
self-denial — as if our nature, or our circumstances, or 
our conscience, dealt with us severely in loading us 
with the daily cross. But is it not plain after all 
that the life of self-denial is the more abundant life 
— more abundant just in proportion to the ampler 
crucifixion of the narrower life? Is it not a clear 
case of exchange — an exchange however where the 
advantage is entirely on our side? We give up 
a correspondence in which there is a little life to 
enjoy a correspondence in which there is an abundant 
life. What though we sacrifice a hundred such 
correspondences ? We make but the more room 
for the great one that is left. The lesson of self- 
denial, that is to say of Limitation, is concentration. 
Do not spoil your life, it says, at the outset with 
unworthy and impoverishing correspondences ; and 
if it is growing truly rich and abundant, be very jeal- 
ous of ever diluting its high eternal quality with 
anything of earth. To concentrate upon a few great 
correspondences, to oppose to the death the perpetual 
petty larceny of our life by trifles — these are the 
conditions for the highest and happiest life. It is 
only Limitation which can secure the Illimitable. 

The penalty of evading self-denial also is just that 
we get the lesser instead of the larger good. The 
punishment of sin is inseparably bound up with 
itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left 
with the self undenied. When the balance of life 
is struck, the self will be found still there. The 



196 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

discipline of life was meant to destroy this self, but 
that discipline having been evaded — and we all to 
some extent have opportunities, and too often exer- 
cise them, of taking the narrow path by the shortest 
cuts — its purpose is baulked. But the soul is the 
loser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost it. 
This is what Christ meant when He said : " He 
that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that 
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life 
eternal." 

Why does Christ say : " Hate Life " ? Does He 
mean that life is a sin ? No. Life is not a sin. 
Still, He says we must hate it. But we must live. 
Why should we hate what we must do ? For this 
reason, Life is not a sin, but the love of life may be 
a sin. And the best way not to love life is to hate 
it. Is it a sin then to love life ? Not a sin exactly, 
but a mistake. It is a sin to love some life, a 
mistake to love the rest. Because that love is lost. 
All that is lavished on it is lost. Christ does not 
say it is wrong to love life. He simply says it is 
loss. Each man has only a certain amount of life, 
of time, of attention — a definite measurable quantity. 
If he gives any of it to this life solely it is wasted. 
Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life, lest you 
steal your love for it from something that deserves 
it more. 

Now this does not apply to all life. It is " life in 
this world " that is to be hated. For life in this 
world implies conformity to this world. It may not 
mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with 



MORTIFICATION. 197 

worldly sets ; but a subtler thing than that — a silent 
deference to worldly opinion ; an almost unconscious 
lowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly 
religious world around ; a subdued resistance to the 
soul's delicate promptings to greater consecration, 
out of deference to " breadth " or fear of ridicule. 
These, and such things, are what Christ tells us we 
must hate. For these things are of the very essence 
of worldliness. u If any man love the world," even 
in this sense, " the love of the Father is not in 
him." 

There are two ways of hating life, a true and a 
false. Some men hate life because it hates them. 
They have seen through it, and it has turned round 
upon them. They have drunk it, and came to the 
dregs ; therefore they hate it. This is one of the 
ways in which the man who loves his life literally 
loses it. He loves it till he loses it, then he hates it 
because it has fooled him. The other way is the 
religious. For religious reasons a man deliberately 
braces himself to the systematic hating of his life. 
" No man can serve two masters, for either he must 
hate the one and love the other, or else he must hold 
to the one and despise the other." Despising the 
other — this is hating life, limiting life. It is not 
misanthropy, but Christianity. 

This principle, as has been said, contains the true 
philosophy of self-denial. It also holds the secret 
by which self-denial may be most easily borne. A 
common conception of self-denial is that there are 
a multitude of things about life which are to be put 



198 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

down with a high hand the moment they make their 
appearance. They are temptations which are not to 
be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of 
being with pang and effort. 

So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting off 
of things which we love as our right hand. But now 
suppose one tried boldly to hate these things ? 
Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to 
what things we were henceforth to allow to become 
our life ? Suppose we selected a given area of our 
environment and determined once for all that our 
correspondences should go to that alone, fencing in 
this area all around with a morally impassable wall ? 
True, to others, we should seem to live a poorer 
life ; they would see that our environment was cir- 
cumscribed, and call us narrow because it w T as narrow. 
But, well-chosen, this limited life would be really the 
fullest life ; it would be rich in the highest and 
worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest cor- 
respondences. The well-defined spiritual life is not 
only the highest life, but it is also the most easily 
lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than 
the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of 
both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he 
who seeks to serve two masters misses the bene- 
diction of both. But he who has taken his stand, 
who has drawn a boundary line, sharp and deep 
about his religious life, who has marked off all 
beyond as forever forbidden ground to him, finds 
the yoke easy and the burden light. For this for- 
bidden environment comes to be as if it were not. 



MORTIFICATION. 199 

His faculties falling out of correspondence, slowly 
lost their sensibilities. And the balm of Death 
numbing his lower nature releases him for the scarce 
disturbed communion of a higher life. So even here 
to die is gain. 



ETEKNAL LIFE. 



" Supposing that man, in some form, is permitted to 
remain on the earth for a long series of years, toe 
merely lengthen out the period, but ice cannot escape the 
final catastrophe. The earth will gradually lose its 
energy of rotation, as well as that of revolution round 
the su?i. The sun himself will wax dim and become use- 
less as a source of energy, until at last the favorable 
conditions of the present solar system ivitt have quite dis- 
appeared. 

" But what happens to our system will hapypen like- 
icise to the whole visible universe, which will, if finite, 
become a lifeless mass, if indeed it be not doomed to 
utter dissolution. In fine, it will become old and effete, 
no less truly than the individual. It is a glorious gar- 
ment, this visible universe, but not an immortal one. We 
must look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with immor- 
tality as with a garment." 

The Unseen Universe. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 

" This is Life Eternal— that they might know Thee the True 
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." — Jesus Christ. 

" Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there 
no changes in the environment but such as the organism had 
adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the effi- 
ciency which it met them, there would be eternal existence 
and eternal knowledge." — Herbert Spencer. 

One of the most startling achievements of recent 
science is a definition of Eternal Life. To the relig- 
ious mind this is a contribution of immense moment. 
Eor eighteen hundred years only one definition of 
Life Eternal was before the world. Now there are 
two. 

Through all these centuries revealed religion had 
this doctrine to itself. Ethics had a voice, as well 
as Christianity, on the question of the summum 
bonum ; Philosophy ventured to speculate on the 
Being of a God. But no source outside Christianity 
contributed anything to the doctrine of Eternal Life. 
Apart from Kevelation, this great truth was un- 
guaranteed. It was the one thing in the Christian 
system that most needed verification from without, 
yet none was forthcoming. And never has any 
further light been thrown upon the question why in 

203 



204 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

its very nature the Christian Life should be Eternal. 
Christianity itself even upon this point has been 
obscure. Its decision upon the bare fact is authori- 
tative and specific. But as to what there is in the 
Spiritual Life necessarily endowing it with the 
element of Eternity, the maturest theology is all but 
silent. 

It has been reserved for modern biology at once 
to defend and illuminate this central truth of the 
Christian faith. And hence in the interests of relig- 
ion, practical and evidential, this second and scientific 
definition of Eternal Life is to be hailed as an 
announcement of commanding interest. Why it 
should not yet have received the recognition of 
religious thinkers — for already it has lain some years 
unnoticed — is not difficult to understand. The belief 
in Science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough 
to warrant men in searching there for witnesses to 
the highest Christian truths. The inspiration of 
Nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler doc- 
trines alone. And yet the reverent inquirer who 
guides his steps in the right direction may find even 
now in the still dim twilight of the scientific world 
much that will illuminate and intensify his sublimest 
faith. Here, at least, comes, and comes unbidden, 
the opportunity of testing the most vital point of the 
Christian system. Hitherto the Christian philos- 
opher has remained content with the scientific evi- 
dence against Annihilation. Or, with Butler, he has 
reasoned from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a 
future life. Or again, with the authors of "The 



ETERNAL LIFE. 205 

Unseen Universe," the apologist has constructed 
elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon 
the Law of Continuity. But now we may draw nearer. 
For the first time Science touches Christianity posi- 
tively on the doctrine of Immortality. It confronts 
us with an actual definition of an Eternal Life, 
based on a full and rigidly accurate examination of 
the necessary condition. Science does not pretend 
that it can fulfil these conditions. Its votaries make 
no claim to possess the Eternal Life. It simply 
postulates the requisite condition without concern- 
ing itself whether any organism should ever appear, 
or does now exist, which might fulfil them. The 
claim of religion, on the other hand, is that there are 
organisms which possess Eternal Life. And the 
problem for us to solve is this : Do those who pro- 
fess to possess Eternal Life fulfil the conditions 
required by Science, or are they different conditions ? 
In a word, Is the Christian conception of Eternal 
Life scientific % 

It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that 
the definition of Eternal Life drawn up by Science 
was framed without reference to religion. It must 
indeed have been the last thought with the thinker 
to whom we chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the 
conception of a Life in its very nature necessarily 
eternal, he was contributing to Theology. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer — for it is to him we owe it — 
would be the first to admit the impartiality of his 
definition ; and from the connection in which it 
occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was 



206 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

not even present to his mind. He is analyzing with 
minute care the relations between Environment and 
Life. He unfolds the principle according to which 
Life is high or low, long or short. He shows why 
organisms live and why they die. And finally he 
defines a condition of things in which an organism 
would never die — in which it would enjoy a perpetual 
and perfect Life. This to him is, of course, but a 
speculation. Life Eternal is a biological conceit. 
The conditions necessary to an Eternal Life do not 
exist in the natural world. So that the definition is 
altogether impartial and independent. A Perfect 
Life, to Science, is simply a thing which is theoreti- 
cally possible — like a Perfect Yacuum. 

Before giving, in so many words, the definition of 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, it will render it fully intelli- 
gible if we gradually lead up to it by a brief re- 
hearsal of the few and simple biological facts on 
which it is based. In considering the subject of 
Death, we have formerly seen that there are 
degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives 
have more and fuller correspondence with Environ- 
ment than others. The amount of correspondence, 
again, is determined by the greater or less complex- 
ity of the organism. Thus a simple organism like 
the Amoeba is possessed of very few correspondences. 
It is a mere sac of transparent structureless jelly for 
which organization has done almost nothing, and 
hence it can only communicate with the smallest 
possible era of Environment. An insect, in virtue 
of its more complex structure, corresponds with a 



ETERNAL LIFE. - 207 

wider area. Nature has endowed it with special 
faculties for reaching out to the Environment on 
many sides ; it has more life than the Amoeba. In 
other words, it is a higher animal. Man again, 
whose body is still further differentiated, or broken 
up into different correspondences, finds himself en. 
rapport with his surroundings to a further extent. 
And therefore he is higher still, more living still. 
And this law, that the degree of Life varies with 
the degree of correspondence, holds to the minutest 
detail throughout the entire range of living things. 
Life becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more 
and more sensitive and responsive to an ever- 
widening Environment as we rise in the chain of 
being. 

Now it will speedily appear that a distinct rela- 
tion exists, and must exist, between complexity 
and longevity. Death being brought about by the 
failure of an organism to adjust itself to some 
change in the Environment, it follows that those 
organisms which are able to adjust themselves most 
readily and successfully will live the longest. They 
will continue time after time to effect the appro- 
priate adjustment, and their power of doing so will 
be exactly proportionate to their complexity — that 
is, to the amount of Environment they can control 
with their correspondences. There are, for example, 
in the Environment of every animal certain things 
which are directly or indirectly dangerous to Life. 
If its equipment of correspondences is not com- 
plete enough to enable it to avoid these clangers 



208 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

in all possible circumstances, it must sooner or 
later succumb. The organism then with the most 
perfect set of correspondences, that is, the highest 
and most complex organism, has an obvious advan- 
tage over less complex forms. It can adjust itself 
more perfectly and frequently. But this is just 
the biological way of saying that it can live the 
longest. And hence the relation between com- 
plexity and longevity may be expressed thus — the 
most complex organisms are the longest lived. 

To state and illustrate the proposition conversely 
may make the point still further clear. The less 
highly organized an animal is, the less will be its 
chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence 
with its environment. At some time or other in its 
career circumstances are sure to occur to which 
the comparatively immobile organism finds itself 
structurally unable to respond. Thus a Medusa, 
tossed ashore bv a wave, finds itself so out of cor- 
respondence with its new surroundings that its life 
must pay the forfeit. Had it been able by internal 
change to adapt itself to external change — to cor- 
respond sufficiently with the new environment, as 
for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, 
back into that environment with which it had 
completer correspondence — its life might have been 
spared. But had this happened it would continue 
to live henceforth only so long as it could continue 
in correspondence with all the circumstances in 
which it might find itself. Even if, however, it 
became complex enough to resist the ordinary and 



ETERNAL LIFE. 209 

direct dangers of its environment, it might still be 
out of correspondence with others. A naturalist, 
for instance, might take advantage of its want of 
correspondence with particular sights and sounds to 
capture it for his cabinet, or the sudden dropping 
of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw might 
cause its untimely death. 

Again, in the case of a bird, in virtue of its 
more complex organization, there is command over 
a much larger area of environment. It can take 
precautions such as the Medusa could not ; it has 
increased facilities for securing food ; its adjust- 
ments all round are more complex ; and therefore 
it ought to be able to maintain its Life for a longer 
period. There is still a large area, however, over 
which it has no control. Its power of internal 
change is not complete enough to afford it perfect 
correspondence with all external changes, and its 
tenure of life is to that extent insecure. Its cor- 
respondence, moreover, is limited even with regard 
to those external conditions with which it has been 
partially established Thus a bird in ordinary cir- 
cumstances has no difficulty in adapting itself to 
changes of temperature, but if these are ' varied 
beyond the point at which its capacity of adjust- 
ment begins to fail — for example, during an extreme 
winter — the organism being unable to meet the con- 
dition must perish. The human organism, on the 
other hand, can respond to this external condition, 
as well as to countless other vicissitudes under 
which lower forms would inevitably succumb. Man's 
14 



210 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

adjustments are to the largest known area of En- 
vironment, and hence he ought to be able furthest 
to prolong his Life. 

It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the 
scale of Life we rise also in the scale of longevity. 
The lowest organisms are, as a rule, short-lived, and 
the rate of mortality diminishes more or less 
regularly as we ascend in the animal scale. So ex- 
traordinary indeed is the mortality among lowly- 
organized forms that in most cases a compensation 
is actually provided, nature endowing them with a 
marvellously increased fertility in order to guard 
against absolute extinction. Almost all lower forms 
are furnished not only with great reproductive 
powers, but with different methods of propagation, 
by which, in various circumstances, and in an in- 
credibly short time, the species can be indefinitely 
multiplied. Ehrenberg found that by the repeated 
subdivisions of a single Paramecium, no fewer than 
268,000,000 similar organisms might be produced in 
one month. This power steadily decreases as we 
rise higher in the scale, until forms are reached in 
which one, two, or at most three, come into being at 
a birth. It decreases, however, because it is no longer 
needed. These forms have a much longer lease of 
Life. And it may be taken as a rule, although it 
has exceptions, that complexity in animal organisms 
is always associated with longevity. 

It may be objected that these illustrations are 
taken merely from morbid conditions. But whether 
the Life be cut short by accident or by disease the 



ETERNAL LIFE. 211 

principle is the same. All dissolution is brought 
about practically in the same way. A certain con- 
dition in the Environment fails to be met by a cor- 
responding condition in the organism, and this is 
death. And conversely the more an organism in 
virtue of its complexity can adapt itself to all the 
parts of its Environment, the longer it will live. 
" It is manifest a priori " says Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
" that since changes in the physical state of the en- 
vironment, as also those mechanical actions and those 
variations of available food which occur in it, are 
liable to stop the processes going on in the organism ; 
and since the adaptive changes in the organism 
have the effects of directly or indirectly counter- 
balancing these changes in the environment, it 
follows that the life of the organism Avill be short 
or long, low or high, according to the extent to 
which changes in the environment are met by corre- 
sponding changes in the organism. Allowing a 
margin for perturbations, the life will continue only 
while the correspondence continues ; the complete- 
ness of the life will be proportionate to the complete- 
ness of the correspondence ; and the life will be per- 
fect only when the correspondence is perfect." * 

We are now all but in sight of our scientific defini- 
tion of Eternal Life. The desideratum is an organ- 
ism with a correspondence of a very exceptional 
kind. It must lie beyond the reach of those " me- 
chanical actions " and those " variations of available 
food," which are " liable to stop the processes going 
* " Principles of Biology," p. 82. 



^12 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

on in the organism." Before we reach an Eternal 
Life we must pass beyond that point at which all 
ordinary correspondences inevitably cease. We 
must find an organism so high and complex, that at 
some point in its development it shall have added a 
correspondence which organic death is powerless to 
arrest. We must in short pass beyond that finite 
region where the correspondences depend on evan- 
escent and material media, and enter a further re- 
gion where the Environment corresponded with is 
itself Eternal. Such an Environment exists. The 
Environment of the Spiritual world is outside the 
influence of these " mechanical actions," which 
sooner or later interrupt the processes going on in 
all finite organisms. If then we can find an organ- 
ism which has established a correspondence with 
the spiritual world, that correspondence will possess 
the elements of eternity — provided only one other 
condition be fulfilled. 

That condition is that the Environment be perfect. 
If it is not perfect, if it is not the highest, if it is 
endowed with the finite quality of change, there can 
be no guarantee that the Life of its correspondents 
will be eternal. Some change might occur in it 
which the correspondents had no adaptive changes 
to meet, and Life would cease. But grant a spir- 
itual organism in perfect correspondence with a 
perfect spiritual Environment, and the conditions 
necessarv to Eternal Life are satisfied. 

The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's defini- 
tion of Eternal Life may now be given, And it will 



ETERNAL LIFE. 213 

be seen that they include essentially the conditions 
here laid down. " Perfect correspondence would be 
perfect life. Were there no changes in the environ- 
ment but such as the organism had adapted changes 
to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency 
with which it met them, there would be eternal 
existence and eternal knowledge."* Reserving the 
question as to the possible fulfilment of these con- 
ditions, let us tarn for a moment to the definition of 
Eternal Life laid down by Christ. Let us place it 
alongside the definition of Science, and mark the 
points of contact. Uninterrupted correspondence 
with a perfect Environment is Eternal Life according 
to Science. " This is Life Eternal," said Christ, 
" that they may know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." f Life Eternal 
is to know God. To know God is to " correspond " 
with God. To correspond with God is to correspond 
with a Perfect Environment. And the organism 
which attains to this, in the nature of things must 
live forever. Here is " eternal existence and eternal 
knowledge." 

The main point of agreement between the scientific 
and the religious definition is that Life consists in a 
peculiar and personal relation defined as a " corre- 
spondence." This conception, that Life consists in 
correspondences, has been so abundantly illustrated 
already that it is now unnecessary to discuss it 
further. All Life indeed consists essentially in 

* Principles of Biology," p. 88. 
■j- John xvii. 



214 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

correspondences with various Environments. The 
artist's life is a correspondence with art ; the musi- 
cian's with music. To cut them off from these En- 
vironments is in that relation to cut off their Life. 
To be cut off from all Environment is death. To 
find a new Environment again and cultivate relation 
with it is to find a new Life. To live is to corre- 
spond, and to correspond is to live. So much is true 
in Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it 
is of great importance to observe that to Religion 
also the conception of Life is a correspondence. No 
truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly or 
wilfully travestied than the doctrine of Immortality. 
The popular idea, in spite of a hundred protests, is 
that Eternal Life is to live forever. A single glance 
at the locus classicus, might have made this error 
impossible. There we are told that Life Eternal is 
not to live. This is Life Eternal — to know. And yet 
— and it is a notorious instance of the fact that men 
who are opposed to Religion will take their con- 
ceptions of its profoundest truths from mere vulgar 
perversions — this view still represents to many cul- 
tivated men the Scriptural doctrine of Eternal Life. 
From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, 
not unseldom from lips which Science ought to 
have taught more caution, that the Future Life of 
Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an 
eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance 
of being. The Bible never could commit itself to 
any such empty platitude ; nor could Christianity 
ever offer to the world a hope so colorless. Not 



ETERNAL LIFE. 215 

that Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlasting- 
ness. That is part of the conception. And it is this 
aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field 
of Science. But even Science has more in its defi- 
nition than longevity. It has a correspondence and 
an Environment ; and although it cannot fill up 
these terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the 
nature of the relation, the kind of thing that is meant 
by Life. Science speaks to us indeed of much more 
than numbers of years. It defines degrees of Life. 
It explains a widening Environment. It unfolds 
the relation between a widening Environment and 
increasing complexity in organisms. And if it has no 
absolute contribution to the content of Religion, its 
analogies are not limited to a point. It yields to 
Immortality, and this is the most that Science can 
do in anv case, the broad framework for a doctrine. 
The further definition, moreover, of this corre- 
spondence as knowing is in the highest degree signi- 
ficant. Is not this the precise quality in an Eternal 
correspondence which the analogies of Science would 
prepare us to look for ? Longevity is associated 
with complexity. And complexity in organisms is 
manifested by the successive addition of correspon- 
dences, each richer and larger than those which have 
gone before. The differentiation, therefore, of the 
spiritual organism ought to be signalized by the 
addition of the highest possible correspondence. It 
is not essential to the idea that the correspondence 
should be altogether novel ; it is necessary rather 
that it should not. An altogether new correspon- 



216 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

dence appearing suddenly without shadow or proph- 
ecy would be a violation of continuity. What we 
should expect would be something new, and yet 
something that we were already prepared for. We 
should look for a further development in harmony 
with current developments ; the extension of the last 
and highest correspondence in a new and higher 
direction. And this is exactly what we have. In 
the world with which biology deals, Evolution cul- 
minates in Knowledge. 

At whatever point in the zoological scale this cor- 
respondence, or set of correspondences, begins, it is 
certain there is nothing higher. In its stunted 
infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest be- 
ginnings in animal intelligence, it is a thing so won- 
derful, as to strike everv thoughtful and reverent 
observer with awe. Even among the invertebrates 
so marvellously are these or kindred powers dis- 
played, that naturalists do not hesitate now, on the 
ground of intelligence at least, to classify some of the 
humblest creatures next to man himself.* Nothing 
in nature, indeed, is so unlike the rest of nature, so 
prophetic of what is beyond it, so supernatural. And 
as manifested in Man who crowns creation with his 
all-embracing consciousness, but there is but one 
word to describe his knowledge : it is Divine. If 
then from this point there is to be any further Evo- 
lution, this surely must be the correspondence in 
which it shall take place ? This correspondence is 

* Vide Sir John Lubbock's " Ants, Bees, and Wasps," pp. 1- 
181. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 217 

great enough to demand development ; and yet it is 
little enough to need it. The magnificence of what 
it has achieved relatively, is the pledge of the pos- 
sibility of more ; the insignificance of its conquest 
absolutely involves the probability of still richer 
triumphs. If anything, in short, in humanity is to 
go on it must be this. Other correspondences may 
continue likewise ; others, again, we can well afford 
to leave behind. But this cannot cease. This 
correspondence — or this set of correspondences, for 
it is very complex — is it not that to which men with 
one consent would attach Eternal Life? Is there 
anything else to which they would attach it ? Is 
anything better conceivable, anything worthier, 
fuller, nobler, anything which would represent a 
higher form of Evolution or offer a more perfect 
ideal for an Eternal Life ? 

But these are questions of quality; and the 
moment we pass from quantity to quality we leave 
Science behind. In the vocabulary of Science, 
Eternity is only the fraction of a word. It means 
mere everlastingness. To Religion, on the other 
hand, Eternity has little to do with time. To cor- 
respond with the God of Science, the Eternal Un- 
knowable, would be everlasting existence ;, to cor- 
respond with " the true God and Jesus Christ," is 
Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life alone 
makes the heaven ; mere everlastingness might be 
no boon. Even the brief span of the temporal life 
is too long for those who spend its years in sorrow. 
Time itself, let alone Eternity, is all but excruciat- 



218 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ing to Doubt. And many besides Schopenhauer have 
secretly regarded consciousness as the hideous mis- 
take and malady of Nature. Therefore we must 
not only have quantity of years, to speak in the lan- 
guage of the present, but quality of correspondence. 
When we leave Science behind, this correspondence 
also receives a higher name. It becomes commun- 
ion. Other names there are for it, religious and 
theological. It may be included in a general ex- 
pression, Faith ; or we may call it by a personal 
and specific term, Love. For the knowing of a 
Whole so great involves the co-operation of many 
parts. 

Communion with God — can it be demonstrated 
in terms of Science that this is a correspondence 
which will never break ? We do not appeal to 
Science for such a testimony. We have asked for 
its conception of an Eternal Life ; and we have 
received for answer that Eternal Life would con- 
sist in a correspondence which should never cease, 
with an Environment which should never pass away. 
And yet what would Science demand of a perfect 
correspondence that is not met by this, the knowing 
of God f There is no other correspondence which 
could satisfy one at least of the conditions. Not 
one could be named which would not bear on the 
face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. 
But this, to know God, stands alone. To know God, 
to be linked with God, to be linked with Eternity 
— if this is not the " eternal existence " of biology, 
what can more nearly approach it? And yet we 



ETERNAL LIFE. 219 

are still a great wav off — to establish a communica- 
tion with the Eternal is not to secure Eternal Life. 
It must be assumed that the communication could 
be sustained. And to assume this would be to beg 
the question. So that we have still to prove Eter- 
nal Life. But let it be again repeated, we are not 
here seeking proofs. We are seeking light. We are 
merely reconnoitring from the furthest promontory 
of Science if so be that through the haze we may 
discern the outline of a distant coast and come to 
some conclusion as to the possibility of landing. 

But, it may be replied, it is not open to any one 
handling the question of Immorality from the side of 
Science to remain neutral as to the question of fact. 
It is not enough to announce that he has no addition 
to make to the positive argument. This may be 
permitted with reference to other points of contact 
between Science and Religion, but not with this. 
We are told this question is settled — that there is 
no positive side. Science meets the entire concep- 
tion of Immortality with a direct negative. In the 
face of a powerful consensus against even the pos- 
sibility of a Future Life, to content oneself with 
saying that Science pretended to no argument in 
favor of it would be at once impertinent and dis- 
honest. We must therefore devote ourselves for a 
moment to the question of possibility. 

The problem is, with a material body and a 
mental organization inseparably connected with it, 
to bridge the grave. Emotion, volition, thought 
itself are functions of the brain. When the brain is 



220 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

impaired, they are impaired. When the brain is 
not, they are not. Everything ceases with the 
dissolution of the material fabric ; muscular activity 
and mental activity perish alike. With the pro- 
nounced positive statements on this point from 
many departments of modern Science we are \all 
familiar. The fatal verdict is recorded bv a hundred 
hands and with scarcely a shadow of qualification. 
" Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject 
the idea of an individual immortality and of a 
personal continuance after death. With the deca}^ 
and dissolution of its material substratum, through 
which alone it has acquired a conscious existence 
and become a person, and upon which it was 
dependent, the spirit must cease to exist." * To the 
same effect Yogt : a Physiology decides definitely 
and categorically against individual immortality, as 
against any special existence of the soul. The soul 
does not enter the foetus like the evil spirit into 
persons possessed, but is a product of the develop- 
ment of the brain, just as muscular activity is a 
product of muscular development, and secretion a 
product of glandular development." After a careful 
review of the position of recent Science with regard 
to the whole doctrine, Mr. Graham sums up thus : 
" Such is the argument of Science, seemingly de- 
cisive against a future life. As we listen to her 
array of syllogisms, our hearts die within us. The 
hopes of men, placed in one scale to be weighed, 
seem to fly up against the massive weight of her 
* Buclmer : ' : Force and Matter," 3d Ed., p. 232, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 221 

evidence, placed in the other. It seems as if all 
our arguments were vain and unsubstantial, as if 
our future expectations were the foolish dreams of 
children, as if there could not be any other possible 
verdict arrived at upon the evidence brought for- 
ward." * 

Can we go on in the teeth of so real an obstruc- 
tion? Has not our own weapon turned against us, 
Science abolishing with authoritative hand the very 
truth we are asking it to define ? 

What the philosopher has to throw into the other 
scale can be easily indicated. Generally speaking, 
he demurs to the dogmatism of the conclusion. 
That mind and brain react, that the mental and 
the physiological processes are related, and very 
intimately related, is beyond controversy. But how 
they are related, he submits, is still altogether un- 
known. The correlation of mind and brain do not 
involve their identity. And not a few authorities 
accordingly have consistently hesitated to draw any 
conclusion at all. Even Buchner's statement turns 
out, on close examination, to be tentative in the 
extreme. In prefacing his chapter on Personal 
Continuance, after a single sentence on the de- 
pendence of the soul and its manifestations upon 
a material substratum, he remarks, " Though we are 
unable to form a definite idea as to the how of this 
connection, we are still by these facts justified in 
asserting, that the mode of this connection renders 
it apparently impossible that they should continue 
* " The Creed of Science," p. 169. 



222 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

to exist separately." * There is, therefore, a flaw at 
this point in the argument for materialism. It 
may not help the spiritualist in the least degree 
positivelj 7 . He may be as far as ever from a 
theory of how consciousness could continue with- 
out the material tissue. But his contention secures 
for him the right of speculation. The path beyond 
may lie in hopeless gloom ; but it is not barred. 
He may bring forward his theory if he will. And 
this is something. For a permission to go on is 
often the most that Science can grant to Religion. 

Men have taken advantage of this loophole in 
various ways. And though it cannot be said that 
these speculations offer us more than a proba- 
bility, this is still enough to combine with the 
deep-seated expectation in the bosom of mankind 
and give fresh lustre to the hope of a future 
life. Whether we find relief in the theory of a 
simple dualism ; whether with Ulrici we further 
define the soul as an invisible enswathement of the 
body, material yet non-atomic ; whether, with the 
" Unseen Universe," we are helped by the spectacle 
of known forms of matter shading off into an 
ever-growing subtilty, mobility, and immateriality ; 
or whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as 
"the ordered unity of many elements," it is cer- 
tain that shapes can be given to the conception 
of a correspondence which shall bridge the grave 
such as to satisfy minds too much accustomed to 
weigh evidence to put themselves off with fancies. 
* "Force and Matter," p. 231. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 223 

But whether the possibilities of physiology or the 
theories of philosophy do or do not substantially 
assist us in realizing Immortality, is to Religion, to 
Religion at least regarded from the present point of 
view, of inferior moment. The fact of Immortality 
rests for us on a different basis. Probably, indeed, 
after all the Christian philosopher never engaged him- 
self in a more superfluous task than in seeking along 
physiological lines to find room for a soul. The 
theory of Christianity has only to be fairly stated to 
make manifest its thorough independence of all the 
usual speculations on Immortality. The theory is 
not that thought, volition, or emotion, as such are 
to survive the grave. The difficulty of holding a 
doctrine in this form, in spite of what has been 
advanced to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and 
wishes of mankind, in spite of all the scientific and 
philosophical attempts to make it tenable, is still 
profound. No secular theory of personal continu- 
ance, as even Butler acknowledged, does not 
equally demand the eternity of the brute. No 
secular theory defines the point in the chain of 
Evolution at which, organisms became endowed 
with Immortality. No secular theory explains the 
condition of the endowment, nor indicates its goal. 
And if we have nothing more to fan hope than 
the unexplored mystery of the whole region, or the 
unknown remainders among the potencies of Life, 
then, as those who have "hope only in this world," 
we are " of all men the most miserable." 

"When we turn, on the other hand, to the doc- 



224 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

trine as it came from the lips of Christ, we find 
ourselves in an entirely different region. He makes 
no attempt to project the material into the imma- 
terial. The old elements, however refined and subtil 
as to their matter, are not in themselves to inherit 
the Kingdom of God. That which is- flesh is flesh. 
Instead of attaching Immortality to the natural 
organism, He introduces a new and original factor 
which none of the secular, and few even of the 
theological theories, seem to take sufficiently into 
account. To Christianity, " he that hath the Son of 
God hath Life, and he that hath not the Son hath 
not Life." This, as we take it, defines the corre- 
spondence which is to bridge the grave. This is the 
clue to the nature of the Life that lies at the back 
of the spiritual organism. And this is the true 
solution of the mystery of Eternal Life. 

There lies a something at the back of the corre- 
spondences of the spiritual organisms — just as there 
lies a something at the back of the natural corre- 
spondences. To say that Life is a correspondence is 
only to express the partial truth. There is some- 
thing behind. Life manifests itself in correspon- 
dences. But what determines them ? The organism 
exhibits a variety of correspondences. What organ- 
izes them % As in the natural, so in the spiritual, 
there is a Principle of Life. We cannot get rid of 
that term. However clumsy, however provisional, 
however much a mere cloak for ignorance, Science 
as yet is unable to dispense with the idea of a 
Principle of Life. We must work with the word 



ETERNAL LIFE. 225 

till we get a better. Now that which determines 
the correspondence of the spiritual organism is a 
Principle of Spiritual Life. It is a new and Divine 
Possession. He that hath the Son hath Life ; 
conversely, he that hath Life hath the Son. And 
this indicates at once the quality and the quantity 
of the correspondence which is to bridge the grave. 
He that hath Life hath the Son. He possesses the 
Spirit of a son. That spirit is, so to speak, 
organized within him by the Son. It is the mani- 
festation of the new nature — of which more anon. 
The fact to note at present is that this is not an 
organic correspondence, but a spiritual correspon- 
dence. It comes not from generation, but from 
regeneration. The relation between the spiritual 
man and his Environment is, in theological lan- 
guage, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the 
filial correspondence, he knows the Father — and 
this is Life Eternal. This is not only the real 
relation, but the only possible relation: "Neither 
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he 
to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." And 
this on purely natural grounds. It takes the Divine 
to know the Divine — but in no more mysterious 
sense than it takes the human to understand the 
human. The analogy, indeed, for the whole field 
here has been finely expressed already by Paul : 
" What man," he asks, " knoweth the things of a 
man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? 
even so the things of God knoweth no man, but 
the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the 
*5 



226 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; 
that we might know the things that are freely 
given to us of God." * 

It were idle, such being the quality of the new 
relation, to add that this also contains the guarantee 
of its eternity. Here at last is a correspondence 
which will never cease. Its powers in bridging the 
grave have been tried. The correspondence of the 
spiritual man possesses the supernatural virtues of 
the Resurrection and the Life. It is known by 
former experiment to have survived the " changes 
in the physical state of the environment," and those 
" mechanical actions " and " variations of available 
food," which Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us are " liable 
to stop the processes going on in the organism." In 
short, this is a correspondence which at once satisfies 
the demands of Science and Religion. In mere 
quantity it is different from every other corre- 
spondence known. Setting aside everything else in 
Religion, everything adventitious, local and pro- 
visional ; dissecting in to the bone and marrow we 
find this — a correspondence which can never break 
with an Environment which can never change. 
Here is a relation established with Eternity. The 
passing years lay no limiting hand on it. Cor- 
ruption injures it not. It survives Death. It, and 
it only, will stretch beyond the grave and be found 
inviolate — 

" When the moon is old, 
And the stars are cold, 
And the books of the Judgment-day unfold." 

* 1 Cor. ii. 11, 12. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 227 

The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the 
brightest faith has already received its expression 
and its rebuke : " Who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or 
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword % " Shall these " changes in the physical state 
of the environment " which threaten death to the 
natural man destroy the spiritual 1 Shall death, or 
life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest 
or tamper with his eternal correspondences ? " Nay, 
in all these things we are more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded 
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." * 

It may seem an objection to some that the " per- 
fect correspondence " should come to man in so 
extraordinary a way. The earlier stages in the 
doctrine are promising enough ; they are entirely in 
line with Nature. And if Nature has also furnished 
the " perfect correspondence " demanded for an 
Eternal Life the position might be unassailable. 
But this sudden reference to a something outside the 
natural Environment destroys the continuity, and 
discovers a permanent weakness in the whole theory ? 
To which there is a twofold reply. In the first 
place, to go outside what we call Nature is not to 
go outside Environment. Nature, the natural Envi- 

* Rom. viii. 35-39. 



228 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ronment, is only a part of Environment. There 
is another large part which, though some profess 
to have no correspondence with it, is not on that 
account unreal, or even unnatural. The mental and 
moral world is unknown to the plant. But it is real. 
It cannot be affirmed either that it is unnatural to 
the plant ; although it might be said that from the 
point of view of the Vegetable Kingdom it was 
Supernatural. Things are natural or supernatural 
simply according to where one stands. Man is 
supernatural to the mineral ; God is supernatural to 
the man. When a mineral is seized upon by the 
living plant and elevated to the organic kingdom,' 
no trespass against Nature is committed. It merely 
enters a larger Environment, which before was super- 
natural to it, but which now is entirely natural. 
When the heart of a man, again, is seized upon by 
the quickening Spirit of God, no further violence is 
done to natural law. It is another case of the in- 
organic, so to speak, passing into the organic. 

But, in the second place, it is complained as if it 
were an enormity in itself that the spiritual cor- 
respondence should be furnished from the spiritual 
world. And to this the answer lies in the same 
direction. Correspondence in any case is the gift of 
Environment. The natural Environment gives men 
their natural faculties; the spiritual affords them 
their spiritual faculties. It is natural for the spiritual 
Environment to supply the spiritual faculties; it 
would be quite unnatural for the natural Environ- 
ment to do it. The natural law of Biogenesis forbids 



ETERNAL LIFE. 229 

it ; the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehend 
the Infinite is against it ; the spiritual principle that 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God 
renders it absurd. "Not, however, that the spiritual 
faculties are, as it were, manufactured in the spiritual 
world and supplied ready-made to the spiritual organ- 
ism — forced upon it as an external equipment. This 
certainly is not involved in saying that the spiritual 
faculties are furnished by the spiritual world. Or- 
ganisms are not added to by accretion, as in the case 
of minerals, but by growth. And the spiritual 
faculties are organized in the spiritual protoplasm of 
the soul, just as other faculties are organized in the 
protoplasm of the body. The plant is made of 
materials which have once been inorganic. An 
organizing principle not belonging to their kingdom 
lays hold of them and elaborates them until they 
have correspondences with the kingdom to which the 
organizing principle belonged. Their original organ- 
izing principle, if it can be called by this name, 
was Crystallization ; so that we have now a distinctly 
foreign power organizing in totally new and higher 
directions. In the spiritual world, similarly, we find 
an organizing principle at work among the materials 
of the organic kingdom, performing a further mira- 
cle, but not a different kind of miracle, producing 
organizations of a novel kind, but not by a novel 
method. The second process, in fact, is simply what 
an enlightened evolutionist would have expected 
from the first. It marks the natural and legitimate 
progress of the development. And this is the line 



230 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

of the true Evolution — not the linear Evolution, 
which would look for the development of the natural 
man through powers already inherent, as if one were 
to look to Crystallization to accomplish the develop- 
ment of the mineral into the plant, — but that larger 
form of Evolution which includes among its factors 
the double Law of Biogenesis and the immense 
further truth that this involves. 

What is further included in this complex corre- 
spondence we shall have opportunity to illustrate 
afterwards." * Meantime let it be noted on what the 
Christian argument for Immortality really rests. It 
stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian 
rests the whole of historical Christianity — the Resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ. 

It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Chris- 
tian teaching that Christ's mission on earth was to 
give men Life. "I am come," He said, " that ye 
might have Life, and that ye might have it more 
abundantly." And that He meant literal Life, literal 
spiritual and Eternal Life, is clear from the whole 
course of His teaching and acting. To impose a 
metaphorical meaning on the commonest word of the 
~New Testament is to violate every canon of interpre- 
tation, and at the same time to charge the greatest 
of teachers with persistently mystifying His hearers 
by an unusual use of so exact a vehicle for express- 
ing definite thought as the Greek language, and that 
on the most momentous subject of which He ever 
spoke to men. It is a canon of interpretation, ac- 
* Vide " Conformity to Type," page 277. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 231 

cording to Alford, that " a figurative sense of words 
is never admissible except when required by the 
context." The context, in most cases, is not only 
directly unfavorable to a figurative meaning, but in 
innumerable instances in Christ's teaching Life is 
broadly contrasted with Death. In the teaching of 
the apostles, again, we find that, without exception, 
they accepted the term in its simple literal sense. 
Reuss defines the apostolic belief with his usual im- 
partiality when — and the quotation is doubly perti- 
nent here — he discovers in the apostle's conception 
of Life, first, " the idea of a real existence, an exist- 
ence such as is proper to God and to the World ; an 
imperishable existence— that is to say, not subject to 
the vicissitudes and imperfections of the finite world. 
This primary idea is repeatedly expressed, at least 
in a negative form ; it leads to a doctrine of immor- 
tality, or, to speak more correctly, of life, far sur- 
passing any that had been expressed in the formulas 
of the current philosophy or theology, and resting 
upon premises and conceptions altogether different. 
In fact, it can dispense both with the philosophical 
thesis of the immateriality or indestructibility of the 
human soul, and with the theological thesis of a 
miraculous corporeal reconstruction of our person; 
theses, the first of which is altogether foreign to the 
religion of the Bible, and the second absolutely 
opposed to reason." Second, " the idea of life, as it 
is conceived in this system, implies the idea of a 
power, an operation, a communication, since this life 
no longer remains, so to speak, latent or passive in 



232 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

God and in the Word, but through them reaches the 
believer. It is not a mental somnolent thing ; it is 
not a plant without fruit ; it is a germ which is to 
find fullest development." * 

If we are asked to define more clearly what is 
meant by this mysterious endowment of Life, we 
again hand over the difficulty to Science. When 
Science can define the Natural Life and the Physical 
Force we may hope for further clearness on the 
nature and action of the Spiritual Powers. The 
effort to detect the living Spirit must be at least as 
idle as the attempt to subject protoplasm to micro- 
scopic examination in the hope of discovering Life. 
We are warned, also, not to expect too much. 
u Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it 
goeth." This being its quality, when the Spiritual 
Life is discovered in the laboratory it will possibly 
be time to give it up altogether. It may say, as 
Socrates of his soul, " You may bury me — if you can 
catch me." 

Science never corroborates a spiritual truth with- 
out illuminating it. The threshold of Eternity is a 
place where many shadows meet. And the light of 
Science here, where everything is so dark, is welcome 
a thousand times. Many men would be religious if 
they knew where to begin ; many would be more 
religious if they were sure where it would end. It 
is not indifference that keeps some men from God, 
but ignorance. " Good Master, what must I do to 

* " History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age." 
vol. ii. , p. 496. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 233 

inherit Eternal Life ? " is still the deepest question 
of the age. What is Religion ? What am I to be- 
lieve ? What seek with all my heart and soul and 
mind ? — this is the imperious question sent up to 
consciousness from the depths of being in all earnest 
hours ; sent down again, alas, with many of us, time 
after time, unanswered. Into all our thought and 
work and reading this question pursues us. But the 
theories are rejected one by one ; the great books 
are returned sadly to their shelves, the years pass, 
and the problem remains unsolved. The confusion 
of tongues here is terrible. Every day a new author- 
ity announces himself. Poets, philosophers, preachers 
try their hand on us in turn. New prophets arise, 
and beseech us for our soul's sake to give ear to 
them — at last in an hour of inspiration they have 
discovered the final truth. Yet the doctrine of yes- 
terday is challenged by a fresh philosophy to-day ; 
and the creed of to-day will fall in turn before the 
criticism of to-morrow. Increase of knowledge in- 
creaseth sorrow. And at length the conflicting 
truths, like the beams of light in the laboratory 
experiment, combine in the mind to make total 
darkness. 

But here are two outstanding authorities agreed — 
not men, not philosophers, not creeds. Here is the 
voice of God and the voice of Nature. I cannot be 
wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes when uncer- 
tain of a voice from its very loudness, we catch the 
missing syllable in the echo. In God and Nature we 
have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I am 



234 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

assured. My sense of hearing does not betray me 
twice. I recognize the Yoice in the Echo, the Echo 
makes me certain of the Yoice; I listen and I know. 
The question of a Future Life is a biological ques- 
tion. Nature may be silent on other problems of 
Religion ; but here she has a right to speak. The 
whole confusion around the doctrine of Eternal Life 
has arisen from making it a question of Philosophy. 
"We shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any speculation 
of Philosophy ; the ethical relations here especially 
are intimate and real. But in the first instance 
Eternal Life, as a question of Life, is a problem for 
Biol off v. The soul is a living" organism. And for 
any question as to the soul's Life we must appeal to 
Life-science. And what does the Life-science teach ? 
That if I am to inherit Eternal Life, I must cultivate 
a correspondence with the Eternal. This is a simple 
proposition, for Nature is always simple. I take 
this proposition, and, leaving Nature, proceed to fill 
it in. I search everywhere for a clue to the Eternal. 
I ransack literature for a definition of a correspond- 
ence between man and God. Obviously that can 
only come from one source. And the analogies of 
Science permit us to apply to it. All knowledge lies 
in Environment. When I want to know about min- 
erals I go to minerals. When I want to know about 
flowers I go to flowers. And they tell me. In their 
own way they speak to me, each in its own way, 
and each for itself, — not the mineral for the flower, 
which is impossible, nor the flower for the mineral, 
which is also impossible. So if I want to know 



ETERNAL LIFE. 235 

about Man, I go to his part of the Environment. 
And he tells me about himself, not as the plant or 
the mineral, for he is neither, but in his own way. 
And if I want to know about God, I go to his part 
of the Environment. And He tells me about Him- 
self, not as a Man, for He is not Man, but in His 
own way. And just as naturally as the flower and 
the mineral and the Man, each in their own way, 
tell me about themselves, He tells me about Him- 
self. He very strangely condescends indeed in mak- 
ing things plain to me, actually assuming for a time 
the Form of a Man that I at my poor level may 
better see Him. This is my opportunity to know 
Him. This incarnation is God making Himself 
accessible to human thought — God opening to man 
the possibility of correspondence through Jesus 
Christ. And this correspondence and this Environ- 
ment are those I seek. He Himself assures me, 
" This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee, 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou 
hast sent." Do I not now discern the deeper mean- 
ing in " Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent " ? Do I 
not better understand with what vision and rapture 
the profoundest of the disciples exclaims, " The Son 
of God is come, and hath given us an understanding 
that we might know Him that is true % " * 

Having opened correspondence with the Eternal 
Environment, the subsequent stages are in the line 
of all other normal development. We have but to 
continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the 

* 1 John v. 20. 



236 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

correspondence that has been begun. And we shall 
soon find to our surprise that this is accompanied by 
another and parallel process. The action is not all 
upon our side. The Environment also will be found 
to correspond. The influence of Environment is one 
of the greatest and most substantial of modern bio- 
logical doctrines. Of the power of Environment to 
form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop 
or suppress function, of its potency in determining 
growth, and generally of its immense influence in 
Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But En- 
vironment is now acknowledged to be one of the 
most potent factors in the Evolution of Life. The 
influence of Environment too seems to increase rather 
than diminish as we approach the higher forms of 
being. The highest forms are the most mobile ; 
their capacity of change is the greatest ; they are, 
in short, most easilv acted on bv Environment. 
And not only are the highest organisms the most 
mobile, but the highest parts of the highest organ- 
isms are more mobile than the lower. Environment 
can do little, comparatively, in the direction of in- 
ducing variation in the body of a child ; but how 
plastic is its mind ! How infinitely sensitive is its 
soul ! How infallibly can it be turned to music or 
to dissonance by the moral harmony or discord of 
its outward lot! How decisively indeed are we not 
all formed and moulded, made or unmade, by ex- 
ternal circumstance ! Might we not all confess with 
Ulysses, — 

<( Iama part of all that I have met " ? 



ETERNAL LIFE. 237 

Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of 
Environment on the spiritual nature of him who has 
opened correspondence with God. Reaching out his 
eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world 
around him, shall he not become spiritual ? In vital 
contact with Holiness, shall he not become holy ? 
Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, 
shall he miss becoming pure ? Walking with God 
from day to clay, shall he fail to be taught of God ? 

Growth in grace is sometimes described as a 
strange, mystical, and unintelligible process. It is 
mystical, but neither strange nor unintelligible. It 
proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading 
factor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. 
The possibility of ifc depends upon the mobility of 
the organism ; the result, on the extent and frequency 
of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly 
lead on to a further suggestion. Is it not possible 
that these biological truths may carry with them the 
clue to a still profounder philosophy — even that of 
Regeneration ? 

Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of en- 
vironment certain aquatic animals have become 
adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. Breathing 
normally by gills, as the result and reward of a 
continued effort carried on from generation to gener- 
ation to inspire the air of heaven direct, they have 
slowly acquired the lung-function. In the young 
organism, true to the ancestral type, the gill still 
persists — as in the tadpole of the common frog. 
But as maturity approaches the true lung appears j 



238 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the gill gradually transfers its task to the higher 
organ. It then becomes atrophied and disappears, 
and finally respiration in the adult is conducted by 
lungs alone.* We may be far, in the meantime, from 
saying that this is proved. It is for those who accept 
it to deny the justice of the spiritual analogy. Is 
religion to them unscientific in its doctrine of Re- 
generation ? Will the evolutionist who admits the 
regeneration of the frog under the modifying influence 
of a continued correspondence with a new environ- 
ment, care to question the possibility of the soul 
acquiring such a faculty as that of Prayer, the mar- 
vellous breathing-function of the new creature, when 
in contact with the atmosphere of a besetting God? 
Is the change from the earthly to the heavenly more 
mysterious than the change from the aquatic to 
the terrestrial mode of Life ? Is Evolution to stop 
with the organic ? If it be objected that it has taken 
ages to perfect the function in the batrachian, the 
reply is, that it will take ages to perfect the function 
in the Christian. For every thousand years the 
natural evolution will allow for the development of 
its organism, the Higher Biology will grant its 
product millions. We have indeed spoken of the 
spiritual correspondence as already perfect — but it 
is perfect only as the bud is perfect. "It doth 
not yet appear what it shall be," any more than it 

* Vide also the remarkable experiments of Fraulein v. 
Chauvin on the Transformation of the Mexican Axoloti into 
Amblystoma. — Weismann's " Studies in the Theory of De- 
scent." vol. ii., pt. iii, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 239 

appeared a million years ago what the evolving 
batrachian would be. 

But to return. We have been dealing with the 
scientific aspects of communion with God. Insen- 
sibly, from quantity we have been led to speak of 
quality. And enough has now been advanced to 
indicate generally the nature of that correspondence 
with which is necessarily associated Eternal Life. 
There remains but one or two details to which we 
must lastly, and very briefly, address ourselves. 

The quality of everlastingness belongs, as we have 
seen, to a single correspondence, or rather to a single 
set of correspondences. But it is apparent that 
before this correspondence can take full and final 
effect a further process is necessary. By some means 
it must be separated from all the other correspon- 
dences of the organism which do not share its 
peculiar quality. In this life it is restrained by these 
other correspondences. They may contribute to it, 
or hinder it ; but they are essentially of a different 
order. They belong not to Eternity but to Time, 
and to this present world ; and, unless some provision 
is made for dealing with them, they will detain the 
aspiring organism in this present world till Time is 
ended. Of course, in a sense, all that belongs to 
Time belongs also to Eternity ; but these lower 
correspondences are in their nature unfitted for an 
Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their 
relation to their Environment, they would still not 
be Eternal. However opposed, apparent]} 7 , to the 
scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is vet true 



24:0 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

that perfect correspondence with Environment is not 
Eternal Life. A very important word in the com- 
plete definition is, in this sentence, omitted. On 
that word it has not been necessarv hitherto, and 
for obvious reasons, to place any emphasis, but when 
we come to deal with false pretenders to Immortality 
we must return to it. Were the definition complete 
as it stands, it might, with the permission of the 
psycho-physiologist, guarantee the Immortality of 
every living thing. In the dog, for instance, the 
material framework giving way at death might leave 
the released canine spirit still free to inhabit the 
old Environment. And so with every creature which 
had ever established a conscious relation with sur- 
rounding things. Now the difficulty in framing a 
theory of Eternal Life has been to construct one 
which will exclude the brute creation, drawing the 
line rigidly at man, or at least somewhere within 
the human race. Not that we need object to the 
Immortality of the dog, or of the whole inferior 
creation. Nor that we need refuse a place to any 
intelligible speculation which would people the earth 
to-day with the invisible forms of all things that 
have ever lived. Only we still insist that this is 
not Eternal Life. And why? Because their En- 
vironment is not Eternal. Their correspondence, 
however firmly established, is established with that 
which shall pass away. An Eternal Life demands 
an Eternal Environment. 

The demand for a perfect Environment as well 
as for a perfect correspondence is less clear in Mr. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 241 

Herbert Spencer's definition than it might be. But 
it is an essential factor. An organism might remain 
true to its Environment, but what if the Environ- 
ment played it false ? If the organism possessed the 
power to change, it could adapt itself to successive 
changes in the Environment. And if this were 
guaranteed we should also have the conditions for 
Eternal Life fulfilled. But what if the Environment 
passed away altogether ? What if the earth swept 
suddenly into the sun ? This is a change of Environ- 
ment against which there could be no precaution and 
for which there could be as little provision. With 
a changing Environment even, there must always 
remain the dread and possibility of a falling out of 
correspondence. At the best, Life would be un- 
certain.. But with a changeless Environment — such 
as that possessed by the spiritual organism — the 
perpetuity of the correspondence, so far as the 
external relation is concerned, is guaranteed. This 
quality of permanence in the Environment distin- 
guishes the religious relation from every other. 
Why should not the musician's life be an Eternal 
Life ? Because, for one thing, the musical world, 
the Environment with which he corresponds, is 
not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself 
could last eternally, the environing material things 
with which he corresponds must pass away. His 
soul might last forever — but not his violin. So 
the man of the world might last forever — but not 

the world. His Environment is not eternal ; nor are 
16 



242 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

even his correspondences — the world passeth away 
and the lust thereof. 

We find then that man, or the spiritual man, is 
equipped with two sets of correspondences. One 
set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the other 
is temporal. But unless these are separated by some 
means the temporal will continue to impair and 
hinder the eternal. The final preparation, therefore, 
for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consist in 
the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These 
must be unloosed and dissociated from the higher 
elements. And this is effected by a closing catas- 
trophe — Death. 

Death ensues because certain relations in the 
organism are not adjusted to certain relations in the 
Environment. There will come a time in each 
history when the imperfect correspondences of the 
organism will betray themselves by a failure to 
compass some necessary adjustment. This is why 
Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is the 
necessary result of Imperfection, and the necessary 
end of it. Imperfect correspondence gives imperfect 
and uncertain Life. " Perfect correspondence," on 
the other hand, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
would be " perfect Life." To abolish Death, there- 
fore, all that would be necessary would be to abolish 
Imperfection. But it is the claim of Christianity 
that it can abolish Death. And it is significant to 
notice that it does so by meeting this very demand 
of Science—it abolishes Imperfection. 

The part of the organism which begins to get 



ETERNAL LIFE. 243 

out of correspondence with the Organic Environ- 
ment is the only part which is in vital correspondence 
with it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the natural 
man to be thrown out of correspondence with this 
Environment, it is of inestimable importance to the 
spiritual man. For so long as it is maintained the 
way is barred for a further Evolution. And hence 
the condition necessary for the further Evolution is 
that the spiritual be released from the natural. 
That is to say, the condition of the further Evolu- 
tion is Death. Morsjanua VitoB, therefore, becomes 
a scientific formula. Death, being the final sifting 
of all the correspondences, is the indispensable factor 
of the higher Life. In the language of Science, not 
less than of Scripture, " To die is gain." 

The sifting of the correspondence is done by 
Nature. This is its last and greatest contribution 
to mankind. Over the mouth of the grave the 
perfect and the imperfect submit to their final 
separation. Each goes to its own — earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Spirit to Spirit. " The 
dust shall return to the earth as it was ; and the 
Spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 



ENVIRONMENT. 



" When I talked icith an ardent missionary and 
pointed out to him that his creed found no support in my 
experience, he replied : ' It is not so in your experience, 
but is so in the other world.'' I answer : i Other icorld ! 
There is no other world. God is. one and omnipresent ; 
here or ?iowhere is the whole fact.'* " 

Emeeson. 



ENVIECWMENT. 

" Ye are complete in hiin." — Paul. 

" Whatever amount of power an organism expends in any 
shape is the correlate and equivalent of a power that was 
taken into it from without." — Hebert Spencer. 

Students of Biography will observe that in all well- 
written Lives attention is concentrated for the first 
few chapters upon two points. We are first intro- 
duced to the family to which the subject of memoir 
belonged. The grandparents, or even the more 
remote ancestors, are briefly sketched and their chief 
characteristics brought prominently into view. Then 
the parents themselves are photographed in detail. 
Their appearance and physique, their character, their 
disposition, their mental qualities, are set before us 
in a critical analysis. And finally we are asked to 
observe how much the father and the mother respec- 
tively have transmitted of their peculiar nature to 
their offspring. Plow faithfully the ancestral lines 
have met in the latest product, how mysteriously the 
joint characteristics of body and mind have blended, 
and how unexpected yet how entirely natural a re- 
combination is the result — these points are elaborated 
with cumulative effect until we realize at last how 

little we are dealing with an independent unit, how 

247 



248 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

much with a survival and reorganization of what 
seemed buried in the grave. 

In the second place, we are invited to consider 
more external influences — schools and schoolmasters, 
neighbors, home, pecuniary circumstances, scenery, 
and, by-and-by, the religious and political atmos- 
phere of the time. These also we are assured have 
played their part in making the individual what he 
is. We can estimate these early influences in any 
particular case with but small imagination if we fail 
to see how powerfully they also have moulded mind 
and character, and in what subtle ways they have 
determined the course of the future life. 

This twofold relation of the individual, first, to his 
parents, and second, to his circumstances, is not 
peculiar to human beings. These two factors are 
responsible for making all living organisms what they 
are. When a naturalist attempts to unfold the life- 
history of any animal, he proceeds precisely on these 
same lines. Biography is really a branch of Natural 
History ; and the biographer who discusses his hero 
as the resultant of these two tendencies, follows the 
scientific method as rigidly as Mr. Darwin in study- 
ing " Animals and Plants under Domestication." 

Mr. Darwin, following Weismann, long ago 
pointed out that there are two main factors in all 
Evolution — the nature of the organism and the na- 
ture of the conditions. We have chosen our illus- 
tration from the highest or human species in order 
to define the meaning of these factors in the 
clearest wav ; but it must be remembered that the 



ENVIRONMENT. 249 

development of man under these directive influences 
is essentially the same as that of any other organ- 
ism in the hands of Nature. We are dealing 
therefore with universal Law. It will still fur- 
ther serve to complete the conception of the 
general principle if we now substitute for the cas- 
ual phrases by which the factors have been described 
the more accurate terminology of Science. Thus 
what Biography describes as parental influences, 
Biology would speak of as Heredity ; and all that is 
involved in the second factor — the action of exter- 
nal circumstances and surroundings — the naturalist 
would include under the single term Environment. 
These two, Heredity and Environment, are the 
master-influences of the organic world. These have 
made all of us what we are. These forces are still 
ceaselessly playing upon all our lives. And he who 
truly understands these influences ; he who has de- 
cided how much to allow to each ; he who can regu- 
late new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the 
old, so directing them as at one moment to make 
them co-operate, at another to counteract one an- 
other, understands the rationale of personal develop- 
ment. To seize continuously the opportunity of 
more and more perfect adjustment to better and 
higher conditions, to balance some inward evil with 
some purer influence acting from without, in a word 
to make our Environment at the same time that it 
is making us, — these are the secrets of a well- 
ordered and successful life. 

In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influences 



250 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

which form and transform the soul are Heredity and 
Environment. And here especially where all is in- 
visible, where much that we feel to be real is yet so 
ill-defined, it becomes of vital practical moment to 
clarify the atmosphere as far as possible with con- 
ceptions borrowed from the natural life. Few things 
are less understood than the conditions of the spir- 
itual life. The distressing imcompetence of which 
most of us are conscious in trying to work out our 
spiritual experience is due perhaps less to the 
diseased will which we commonly blame for it than 
to imperfect knowledge of the right conditions. It 
does not occur to us how natural the spiritual is. 
We still strive for some strange transcendent thing ; 
w T e seek to promote life by methods as unnatural as 
they prove unsuccessful ; and only the utter incom- 
prehensibility of the whole region prevents us see- 
ing fully — what we already half-suspect — how com- 
pletely we are missing the road. Living in the 
spiritual world, nevertheless, is just as simple as liv- 
ing in the natural world ; and it is the same kind of 
simplicity. It is the same kind of simplicity for it 
is the same kind of world — there are not two kinds 
of worlds. The conditions of life in the one are the 
conditions of life in the other. And till these con- 
ditions are sensibly grasped, as the conditions of all 
life, it is impossible that the personal effort after the 
highest life should be other than a blind struggle 
carried on in fruitless sorrow and humiliation. 

Of these two universal factors, Heredity and En- 
vironment, it is unnecessary to balance the relative 



ENVIRONMENT. 251 

importance here. The main influence, unquestion- 
ably, must be assigned to the former. In practice, 
however, and for an obvious reason, we are chiefly 
concerned with the latter. What Heredity has to do 
for us is determined outside ourselves. ]STo man can 
select his own parents. But every man to some 
extent can choose his own Environment. His rela- 
tion to it, however largely determined by Heredity 
in the first instance, is always open to alteration. 
And so great is his control over Environment and 
so radical its influence over him, that he can so 
direct it as either to undo, modify, perpetuate or 
intensify the earlier hereditary influences within 
certain limits. But the aspects of Environment 
which we have now to consider do not involve us in 
questions of such complexity. In what high and 
mystical sense, also, Heredity applies to the spiritual 
organism we need not just now inquire. In the sim- 
pler relations of the more external factor we shall 
find a large and fruitful field for study. 

The Influence of Environment may be investigated 
in two main aspects. First, one might discuss the 
modern and very interesting question as to the powder 
of Environment to induce what is known to recent 
science as Variation . A change in the surroundings 
of any animal, it is now well-known, can so react 
upon it as to cause it to change. By the attempt, 
conscious or unconscious, to adjust itself to the new 
conditions, a true physiological change is gradually 
wrought within the organism. Hunter, for example, 
in a classical experiment, so changed the Environ- 



252 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ment of a sea-gull by keeping it in captivity that 
it could only secure a grain diet. The effect was to 
modify the stomach of the bird, normally adapted to 
a fish diet, until in time it came to resemble in struc- 
ture the gizzard of an ordinary grain-feeder such as 
the pigeon. Holmgren again reversed this experi- 
ment by feeding pigeons for a lengthened period on a 
meat-diet, with the result that the gizzard became 
transformed into the carnivorous stomach. Mr. 
Alfred Russel "Wallace mentions the case of a 
Brazilian parrot which changes its color from green 
to red or yellow when fed on the fat of certain fishes. 
ISTot only changes of food, however, but changes of 
climate and of temperature, changes in surrounding 
organisms, in the case of marine animals even 
changes of pressure, of ocean currents, of light, and 
of many other circumstances, are known to exert a 
powerful modifying influence upon living organisms. 
These relations are still being worked out in many 
directions, but the influence of Environment as a 
prime factor in Variation is now a recognized doctrine 
of science.* 

Even the popular mind has been struck with the 
curious adaptation of nearly all animals to their 
habitat, for example in the matter of color. The 
sandy hue of the sole and flounder, the white of the 
polar bear with its suggestion of arctic snows, the 

* Vide Karl Seniper's " The Natural Conditions of Exist- 
ence as they affect Animal Life ; " Wallace's ' ' Tropical Na- 
ture ; " Weismann's " Studies in the Theory of Descent ; " 
Darwin's " Animals and Plants under Domestication." 



ENVIRONMENT. 253 

stripes of the Bengal tiger, — as if the actual reeds of 
its native jungle had nature-printed themselves on its 
hide ; — these and a hundred others which will occur 
to every one, are marked instances of adaptation to 
Environment induced, by Natural Selection or other- 
wise for the purpose, obviously in these cases at 
least, of protection. 

To continue the investigation of the modifying 
action of Environment into the moral and spiritual 
spheres, would be to open a fascinating and sug- 
gestive inquiry. One might show how the moral 
man is acted upon and changed continuously by the 
influences, secret and open, of his surroundings, by 
the tone of society, by the company he keeps, by his 
occupation, by the books he reads, by Nature, by all, 
in short, that constitutes the habitual atmosphere of 
his thoughts and the little world of his daily choice. 
Or one might go deeper still and prove how the 
spiritual life also is modified from outside sources — 
its health or disease, its growth or decay all its 
changes for better or for worse being determined by 
the varying and successive circumstances in which the 
religious habits are cultivated. But we must rather 
transfer our attention to a second aspect of Environ- 
ment, not perhaps so fascinating but yet more im- 
portant. 

So much of the modern discussion of Environment 
revolves round the mere question of Variation that 
one is apt to overlook a previous question. Environ- 
ment as a factor in life is not exhausted when we 
have realized its modifying influence. Its signifi- 



254 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

cance is scarcely touched. The great function of 
Environment is not to modify but to sustain. In 
sustaining life, it is true, it modifies. But the latter 
influence is incidental, the former essential. Our 
Environment is that in which Ave live and move and 
have our being. Without it we should neither live 
nor move nor have any being. In the organism lies 
the principle of life ; in the Environment are the 
conditions of life. Without the fulfilment of these 
conditions, which are wholly supplied by Environ- 
ment, there can be no life. An organism in itself is 
but a part ; Nature is its complement. Alone, cut 
off from its surroundings, it is not. Alone, cut off 
from my surroundings, I am not — physically, I am 
not. I am, only as I am sustained. I continue only 
as I receive. My Environment may modify me, but 
it has first to keep me. And all the time its secret 
transforming power is indirectly moulding body and 
mind it is directly active in the more open task of 
ministering to my myriad wants and from hour to 
hour sustaining life itself. 

To understand the sustaining influence of Envi- 
ronment in the animal world, one has only to recall 
what the biologist terms the extrinsic or subsidiary 
conditions of vitality. Every living thing normally 
requires for its development an Environment con- 
taining air, light, heat, and water. In addition to 
these, if vitality is to be prolonged for any length of 
time, and if it is to be accompanied with growth and 
the expenditure of energy, there must be a constant 
supply of food. When we simply remember how 



ENVIRONMENT. 255 

indispensable food is to growth and work, and when 
we further bear in mind that the food-supply is solely 
contributed by the Environment, we shall realize at 
once the meaning and the truth of the proposition 
that without Environment there can be no life. 
Seventy percent, at least of the human body is made 
of pure water, the rest of gases and earths. These 
have all come from Environment. Through the 
secret pores of the skin two pounds of water are 
exhaled daily from every healthy adult. The supply 
is kept up by Environment. The Environment is 
really an unappropriated part of ourselves. Definite 
portions are continuously abstracted from it and 
added to the organism. And so long as the organ- 
ism continues to grow, act, think, speak, work, or 
perform any other function demanding a supply of 
energy, there is a constant, simultaneous, and pro- 
portionate drain upon its surroundings. 

This is a truth in the physical, and therefore in 
the spiritual, world of so great importance that we 
shall not mis-spend time if we follow it, for further 
confirmation, into another department of nature. 
Its significance in Biology is self-evident ; let us 
appeal to Chemistry. 

When a piece of coal is thrown on the fire, we say 
that it will radiate into the room a certain quantity 
of heat. This heat, in the popular conception, is 
supposed to reside in the coal and to be set free dur- 
ing the process of combustion. In reality, however, 
the heat energy is only in part contained in the coal. 
It is contained just as truly in the coal's Environ- 



256 NATURAL L. (V IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ment — that is to say, in the oxygen of the air. The 
atoms of carbon which compose the coal have a 
powerful affinity for the oxygen of the air. "YThen- 
ever they are made to '< pproach within a certain 
distance of one another, by the initial application 
of heat, thev rush together with inconceivable 
velocity. The heat which appears at this moment, 
comes neither from tin carbon alone, nor from the 
oxvgen alone. These two substances are reallv 
inconsumable, and continue to exist, after they meet 
in a combined form, as carbonic acid gas. The heat 
is due to the energy developed by the chemical em- 
braced, the precipitate rushing together of the mole- 
cules of carbon and the molecules of oxygen. It 
comes, therefore, partly from the coal and partly 
from the Environment. Coal alone never could 
produce heat, neither alone could Environment. The 
two are mutually dependent. And although in 
nearly all the arts we credit everything to the sub- 
stance which we can weigh and handle, it is certain 
that in most cases the larger debt is due to an 
invisible Environment. 

This is one of those great commonplaces which 
slip out of general reckoning by reason of their very 
largeness and simplicity. How profound, neverthe- 
less, are the issues which hang on this elementary 
truth, we shall discover immediately. Nothing in 
this age is more needed in every department of 
knowledge than the rejuvenescence of the common- 
place. In the spiritual world especially, he will be 
wise who courts acquaintance with the most ordinary 



ENVIRONMENT. 257 

and transparent facts of Nature; and in laying the 
foundations for a religious life he will make no 
unworthy beginning who carries with him an im- 
pressive sense of so obvious a truth as that without 
Environment there can be no life. 

For what does this amount to in the spiritual 
world ? Is it not merely the scientific re-statement 
of the reiterated aphorism of Christ, " Without me 
ye can do nothing " ? There is in the spiritual 
organism a principle of life ; but that is not self- 
existent. It requires a second factor, a something 
in which to live and move and have its being, an 
Environment. Without this it cannot live or move 
or have any being. Without Environment the soul 
is as the carbon without the oxygen, as the fish 
without the water, as the animal frame without the 
extrinsic condition of vitality. 

And what is the spiritual Environment ? It is 
God. Without this, therefore, there is no life, no 
thought, no energy, nothing — " without Me ye can 
do nothing." 

The cardinal error in the religious life is to attempt 
to live without an Environment. Spiritual experi- 
ence occupies itself, not too much, but too exclu- 
sively, with one factor — the soul. We delight in 
dissecting this much-tortured faculty, from time to 
time, in search of a certain something which we call 
our faith — forgetting that faith is but an attitude, an 
empty hand for grasping an environing Presence. 
And when we feel the need of a power by which to 
overcome the world, how often do we not seek to 
*7 



258 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

generate it within ourselves by some forced process, 
some fresh girding of the will, some strained activity 
which only leaves the soul in further exhaustion ? 
To examine ourselves is good ; but useless unless we 
also examine Environment. To bewail our weakness 
is right, but not remedial. The cause must be in- 
vestigated as well as the result. And yet, because 
we never see the other half of the problem, our 
failures even fail to instruct us. After each new 
collapse we begin our life anew, but on the old con 
ditions ; and the attempt ends as usual in the repeti- 
tion — in the circumstances the inevitable repetition 
— of the old disaster. Not that at times we do not 
obtain glimpses of the true state of the case. After 
seasons of much discouragement, with the sore sense 
upon us of our abject feebleness, we do confer with 
ourselves, insisting for the thousandth time, " My 
soul, wait thou only upon God." But, the lesson is 
soon forgotten. The strength supplied we speedily 
credit to our own achievement ; and even the tem- 
porary success is mistaken for a symptom of im- 
proved inward vitality. Once more we become self- 
existent. Once more we go on living without an En- 
vironment. And once more, after days of wasting 
without repairing, of spending without replenishing, 
we begin to perish with hunger, only returning to 
God again, as a last resort, when we have reached 
starvation point. 

Now why do we do this ? Why do we seek to 
breathe without an atmosphere, to drink without a 
well % Why this unscientific attempt to sustain life 



ENVIRONMENT. 259 

for weeks at a time without an Environment 1 It is 
because we have never truly seen the necessity for 
an Environment. We have not been working with a 
principle. We are told to " wait only upon God," 
but we do not know why. It has never been as clear 
to us that without God the soul will die as that with- 
out food the body will perish. In short, we have 
never comprehended the doctrine of the Persistence 
of Force. Instead of being content to transform 
energy we have tried to create it. 

The Law of Nature here is as clear as Science can 
make it. In the words of Mr. Herbert Spencer, " It 
is a corollary from that primordial truth which, as we 
have seen, underlies all other truths, that whatever 
amount of power an organism expends in any shape 
is the correlate and equivalent of a power that was 
taken into it from without." * We are dealing here 
with a simple question of dynamics. Whatever 
energy the soul expends must first be " taken into 
it from without." We are not Creators, but crea- 
tures ; God is our refuge and strength. Communion 
with God, therefore, is a scientific necessity ; and 
nothing will more help the defeated spirit which is 
struggling in the wreck of its religious life than a 
common-sense hold of this plain biological principle 
that without Environment he can do nothing. What 
he wants is not an occasional view, but a principle — 
a basal principle like this, broad as the universe, 
solid as nature. In the natural world we act upon 
this law unconsciously. We absorb heat, breathe air, 
* " Principles of Biology," p. 57. 



260 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

draw on Environment all but automatically for meat 
and drink, for the nourishment of the senses, for 
mental stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from 
without, can prolong, enrich, and elevate life. But in 
the spiritual world we have all this to learn. We are 
new creatures, and even the bare living has to be 
acquired. 

Xow the great point in learning to live is to live 
naturally. As closely as possible we must follow the 
broad, clear lines of the natural life. And there are 
three things especially which it is necessary for us to 
keep continually in view. The first is that the 
organism contains within itself only one-half of what 
is essential to life ; the second is that the other half 
is contained in the Environment; the third, that the 
condition of receptivity is simple union between the 
organism and the Environment. 

Translated into the language of religion these 
propositions yield, and place on a scientific basis, 
truths of immense practical interest. To say, first, 
that the organism contains within itself onlv one-half 
of what is essential to life, is to repeat the evangelical 
confession, so worn and yet so true to universal 
experience, of the utter helplessness of man. Who 
has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, 
a fraction of some larger whole ? Who does not miss 
at every turn of his life an absent God ? That man 
is but a part, he knows, for there is room in him 
or more. That God is the other part, he feels, be- 
cause at times He satisfies his need. Who does not 
tremble often under that sicklier symptom of his in- 



ENVIRONMENT. 261 

completeness, his want of spiritual energy, his help- 
lessness with sin ? But now he understands both — 
the void in his life, the powerlessness of his will. 
He understands that, like all other energy, spiritual 
power is contained in Environment. He finds here 
at last the true root of all human frailty, emptiness ; 
nothingness, sin. This is why " Without Me ye can 
do nothing." Powerlessness is the normal state not 
only of this but of every organism — of every organ- 
ism apart from its Environment. 

The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not 
an exceptional nrvstery, nor is man's helplessness an 
arbitrary and unprecedented phenomenon. It is the 
law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxed 
beyond the natural. He is not purposely handi- 
capped by singular limitations or unusual inca- 
pacities. God has not designedly made the religious 
life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the 
spiritual life are the same as for the natural life. 
When in their hours of unbelief men challenge their 
Creator for placing the obstacle of human frailt}^ in 
the way of their highest development, their protest 
is against the order of nature. They object to the 
sun for being the source of energy and not the en- 
gine, to the carbonic acid being in the air and not in 
the plant. They would equip each organism with a 
personal atmosphere, each brain with a private store 
of energy ; they would grow corn in the interior of 
the body, and make bread by a special apparatus in 
the digestive organs. They must, in short, have the 
creature transformed into a Creator. The organism 



262 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

must either depend on his environment, or be self- 
sufficient. But who will not rather approve the 
arrangement bv which man in his creatural life may 
have unbroken access to an Infinite Power % What 
soul will seek to remain self-luminous when it knows 
that " The Lord God is a Sun " t Who will not 
willingly exchange his shallow vessel for Christ's 
well of living water ? Even if the organism, launched 
into being like a ship putting out to sea, possessed a 
full equipment, its little store must soon come to an 
end. But in contact with a large and bounteous 
Environment its supply is limitless. In every direc- 
tion its resources are infinite. 

There is a modern school which protests against the 
doctrine of man's inability as the heartless fiction of 
a past theology. While some forms of that dogma, 
to any one who knows man, are incapable of defence, 
there are others which, to any one who knows Xature, 
are incapable of denial. Those who oppose it, in 
their jealousy for humanity, credit the organism with 
the properties of Environment. All true theology, 
on the other hand, has remained loval to at least the 
root-idea in this truth. The Xew Testament is no- 
where more impressive than where it insists on the 
fact of man's dependence. In its view the first 
step in religion is for man to feel his helplessness. 
Christ's first beatitude is to the poor in spirit. The 
condition of entrance into the spiritual kingdom is to 
possess the child-spirit — that state of mind com- 
bining at once the profoundest helplessness with the 
most artless feeling of dependence. Substantially 



ENVIEONMENT. 263 

the same idea underlies the countless passages in 
which Christ affirms that He has not come to call 
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And in 
that farewell discourse into which the Great Teacher 
poured the most burning convictions of His life, He 
gives to this doctrine an ever-increasing emphasis. 
No words could be more solemn or arresting than 
the sentence in the last great allegory devoted to this 
theme, " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself 
except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye 
abide in Me/' The word here, it will be observed 
again, is cannot. It is the imperative of natural law. 
Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, 
but an impossibility. As well expect the natural 
fruit to flourish without air and heat, without soil and. 
sunshine. How thoroughly also Paul grasped this 
truth is apparent from a hundred pregnant passages 
in which he echoes his Master's teaching. To him 
life was hid with Christ in God. And that he 
embraced this not as a theory but an experimental 
truth we gather from his constant confession, " When 
I am weak, then am I strong." 

This leads by a natural transition to the second 
of the three points we are seeking to illustrate. 
We have seen that the organism contains within 
itself only one half of what is essential to life. 
We have next to observe, as the complement of 
this, how the second half is contained in the En- 
vironment. / 

One result of the due apprenension of our 
personal helplessness will be that we shall no longer 



264 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

waste our time over the impossible task of manu- 
facturing energy for ourselves. Our science will 
bring to an abrupt end the long series of severe 
experiments in which we have indulged in. the 
hope of finding a perpetual motion. And having 
decided upon this once for all, our first step in 
seeking a more satisfactorv state of things must 
be to find a new source of energy. Following 
Nature, only one course is open to us. We must 
refer to Environment. The natural life owes all to 
Environment, so must the spiritual. Xovr the 
Environment of the spiritual life is God. As Nature 
therefore forms the complement of the natural life, 
God is the complement of the spiritual. 

The proof of this ? That Nature is not more 
natural to mv boclv than God is to my soul. E^erv 
animal and plant has its own Environment. And 
the further one inquires into the relations of the 
one to the other, the more one sees the marvellous 
intricacy and beauty of the adjustments. These 
wonderful adaptations of each organism to its sur- 
roundings — of the fish to the water, of the eagle 
to the air, of the insect to the forest-bed ; and of 
each part of every organism — the fish's swim-bladder, 
the eagle's eye, the insect's breathing tubes — which 
the old argument from design brought home to us 
with such enthusiasm, inspire us still with a sense 
of the boundless resource and skill of Nature in 
perfecting her arrangements for each single life. 
Down to the last detail the world is made for what 
is in it ; and by whatever process things are as they 



ENVIRONMENT. 265 

are, all organisms find in surrounding Nature the 
ample complement of themselves. Man, too, finds 
in his Environment provision for all capacities, scope 
for the exercise of every faculty, room for the 
indulgence of each appetite, a just supply for every 
want. So the spiritual man at the apex of the 
pyramid of life finds in the vaster range of his 
Environment a provision, as much higher it is true, 
as he is higher, but as delicately adjusted to his 
varying needs. And all this is supplied to him 
just as the lower organisms are ministered to by 
the lower environment, in the same simple ways, 
in the same constant sequence, as appropriately and 
as lavishly. We fail to praise the ceaseless ministry 
of the great inanimate world around us only because 
its kindness is unobtrusive. Nature is always noise- 
less. All her greatest gifts are given in secret. And 
we forget how truly every good and perfect gift 
comes from without, and from above, because no 
pause in her changeless beneficence teaches us the 
sad lessons of deprivation. 

It is not a strange thing, then, for the soul to 
find its life in God. This is its native air. God 
as the Environment of the soul has been from 
the remotest age the doctrine of all the deepest 
thinkers in religion. How profoundly Hebrew 
poetry is saturated with this high thought will appear 
when we try to conceive of it with this left out. 
True poetry is only science in another form. And 
long before it was possible for religion to give 
scientific expression to its greatest truths, men of 



2QQ NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

insight uttered themselves in psalms which could 
not have been truer to Nature had the most modern 
light controlled the inspiration. " As the hart 
panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul 
after Thee, O God." What fine sense of the analogy 
of the natural and the spiritual does not underlie 
these words. As the hart after its Environment so 
man after his ; as the water-brooks are fitly designed 
to meet the natural wants, so fitly does God imple- 
ment the spiritual need of man. It will be noticed 
that in the Hebrew poets the longing for God never 
strikes one as morbid, or unnatural to the men who 
uttered it. It is as natural to them to long for 
God as for the swallow to seek her nest. Through- 
out all their images no suspicion rises within us 
that they are exaggerating. We feel how truly they 
are reading themselves, their deepest selves. No 
false note occurs in all their aspiration. There is 
no weariness even in their ceaseless sighing, except 
the lover's weariness for the absent — if they would 
fly away, it is only to be at rest. Men who have 
no soul can only wonder at this. Men who have 
a soul, but with little faith, can only envy it. How 
joyous a thing it was to the Hebrews to seek their 
God ! How artlessly they call upon Him to enter- 
tain them in His pavilion, to cover them with His 
feathers, to hide them in His secret place, to hold 
them in the hollow of His hand or stretch around 
them the everlasting arms ! These men were true 
children of Nature. As the humming-bird among 
its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in the sunshine 



ENVIRONMENT. 267 

of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous 
lives. And even the full share of the sadder experi- 
ences of life which came to all of them but drove 
them the further into the Secret Place, and led them 
with more consecration to make, as they expressed 
it, " the Lord their portion." All that has been said 
since from Marcus Aurelius to Swedenborg, from 
Augustine to Schleiermacher of a besetting God as 
the final complement of humanity is but a repetition 
of the Hebrew poets' faith. And even the New 
Testament has nothing higher to offer man than 
this. The psalmist's " God is our refuge and strength " 
is only the earlier form, less defined, less practicable, 
but not less noble, of Christ's " Come unto Me, and 
I will give you rest." 

There is a brief phrase of Paul's which defines 
the relation with almost scientific accuracy, — "Ye 
are complete in him." In this is summed up the 
whole of the Bible anthropology — the completeness 
of man in God, his incompleteness apart from God. 
If it be asked, in what is man incomplete, or, 
In what does God complete him ? the question is 
a wide one. But it may serve to show at least the 
direction in which the Divine Environment forms 
the complement of human life if we ask ourselves 
once more what it is in life that needs comple- 
menting. And to this question Ave receive the 
significant answer that it is in the higher depart- 
ments alone, or mainly, that the incompleteness of 
our life appears. The lower departments of Nature 
are already complete enough. The world itself is 



268 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

about as good a world as might be. It has been 
long in the making, its furniture is all in, its laws 
are in perfect working order ; and although wise 
men at various times have suggested improvements, 
there is on the whole a tolerably unanimous vote 
of confidence in things as thev exist. The Divine 
Environment has little more to do for this planet 
so far as we can see, and so far as the existing 
generation is concerned. Then the lower organic 
life of the world is also so far complete. God, 
through Evolution or otherwise, may still have 
finishing touches to add here and there, but, already 
it is " all very good." It is difficult to conceive any- 
thing better of its kind than a lily or a cedar, an 
ant or an ant-eater. These organisms, so far as we 
can judge, lack nothing. It might be said of them, 
" they are complete in Nature." Of man also, of 
man the animal, it may be affirmed that his En- 
vironment satisfies him. He has food and drink, 
and good food and good drink. And there is in 
him no purely animal want which is not really 
provided for, and that apparently in the happiest 
possible way. 

But the moment we pass beyond the mere animal 
life we begin to come upon an incompleteness. The 
symptoms at first are slight, and betray themselves 
only by an unexplained restlessness or a dull sense 
of want. Then the feverishness increases, becomes 
more defined, and passes slowly into abiding pain. 
To some come darker moments when the 'unrest 
deepens into a mental agony of which all the other 



ENVIRONMENT. 269 

woes of earth are mockeries — moments when the 
forsaken soul can only cry in terror for the Living 
God. Up to a point the natural Environment 
supplies man's wants, beyond that it only derides 
him. How much in man lies beyond that point ? 
Yery much— almost all, all that makes man man. 
The first suspicion of the terrible truth — so for the 
time let us call it — wakens with the dawn of the 
intellectual life. It is a solemn moment when the 
slo \y -moving mind reaches at length the verge of 
its mental horizon, and, looking over, sees nothing 
more. Its straining makes the abyss but more 
profound. Its cry comes back without an echo. 
Where is the Environment to complete this rational 
soul ? Men either find one, — One — or spend the rest 
of their days in trying to shut their eyes. The 
alternatives of the intellectual life are Christianity 
or Agnosticism. The Agnostic is right when he 
trumpets his incompleteness. He who is not com- 
plete in Him must be forever incomplete. Still 
more grave becomes man's case when he begins 
further to explore his moral and social nature. 
The problems of the heart and conscience are in- 
finitely more perplexing than those of the intellect. 
Has love no future? Has right no triumph? Is 
the unfinished self to remain unfinished ? Again 
the alternatives are two, Christianity or Pessimism. 
But when we ascend the further height of the 
religious nature, the crisis comes. There, without 
Environment, the darkness is unutterable. So mad- 
dening now becomes the mystery that men are. 



270 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

compelled to construct an Environment for them- 
selves. Xo Environment here is unthinkable. An 
altar of some sort men must have — God, or Xature, 
or Law. But the anguish of Atheism is only a 
negative proof of man's incompleteness. A witness 
more overwhelming is the prayer of the Christian. 
What a very strange thing, is it not, for man to 
pray ? It is the symbol at once of his littleness 
and of his greatness. Here the sense of imperfec- 
tion, controlled and silenced in the narrower reaches 
of his being, becomes audible. Xow he must utter 
himself. The sense of need is so real, and the sense 
of Environment, that he calls out to it, address- 
ing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his 
need. Surely there is nothing more touching in 
Xature than this ? Man could never so expose him- 
self, so break through all constraint, except from a 
dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpre- 
meditatedness of Prayer that gives it a unique value 
as an apologetic. 

Man has three questions to put to his Environ- 
ment, three symbols of his incompleteness. They 
come from three different centres of his being. The 
first is the question of the intellect, "What is Truth \ 
The natural Environment answers, " Increase of 
Knowledge increaseth Sorrow," and ; ' much studv 
is a Weariness." Christ replies, " Learn of Me, and 
ye shall find Best." Contrast the world's word 
" Weariness " with Christ's word "Best." Xo other 
teacher since the world began has ever associated 
i; learn " with " Best." Learn of me, says the 



ENVIRONMENT. 271 

philosopher, and you shall find Restlessness. Learn 
of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest. 
Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that 
eternally starved yet ever living spectre, finds at 
last its imperishable glory ; Thought is complete in 
Him. The second question is sent up from the 
moral nature, Who will show us any good ? And 
again we have a contrast : the world's verdict, 
« There is none that doeth good, no, not one ; " 
and Christ's, "There is none good but God only." 
And, finally, there is the lonely cry of the spirit, 
most pathetic and most deep of all, Where is he 
whom my soul seeketh ? And the yearning is met 
as before, " I looked on my right hand, and beheld, 
but there was no man that would know me ; refuge 
failed me ; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto 
Thee, O Lord : I said, Thou art my refuge and my 
portion in the land of the living." * 

Are these the directions in which men in these 
days are seeking ' to complete their lives % The 
completion of Life is just now a supreme question. 
It is important to observe how it is being answered. 
If we ask Science or Philosophy they will refer us 
to Evolution. The struggle for Life, they assure us, 
is steadily eliminating imperfect forms, and as the 
fittest continue to survive we shall have a gradual 
perfecting of being. That is to say, that completeness 
is to be sought for in the organism — we are to be 
complete in Nature and in ourselves. To Evolution, 
certainly, all men will look for a further perfecting 

* Ps. cxlii. 4, 5, 



1 I 2 



of Life. But it must be an Evolution which includes 
all the factors. Civilization, it may be said, will deal 
with the second factor. It will improve the Envi- 
ronment step by step as it improves the organism, or 
the organism as it improves the Environment. This 
is well, and it will perfect Life up to a point. But 
beyond that it cannot carry us. As the possibili- 
ties of the natural Life become more defined, its 
impossibilities will become the more appalling. The 
most perfect civilization would leave the best part 
of us still incomplete. Men will have to give 
up the experiment of attempting to live in half an 
Environment. Half an Environment will give but 
half a Life. Half an Environment ? He whose cor- 
respondences are with this world alone has only a 
thousandth part, a fraction, the mere rim and shade 
of an Environment, and only the fraction of a Life. 
How long will it take Science to believe its own 
creed, that the material universe we see around us 
is onlv a fragment of the universe we do not see \ 
The very retention of the phrase " Material Uni- 
verse," we are told, is the confession of our unbelief 
and ignorance ; since "matter is the less important 
half of the material of the physical universe." * 

The thing; to be aimed at is not an organism, self- 
contained and self-sufficient, however high in the 
scale of being, but an organism complete in the 
whole Environment. It is open to any one to aim 
at a self-sufficient Life, but he will find no encourage- 
ment in Nature. The Life of the body may complete 

* The ••Unseen Universe,'* 6th Ed., p, 100, 



ENVIRONMENT. 273 

itself in the physical world ; that is its legitimate 
Environment. The life of the senses, high and low, 
may perfect itself in Nature. Even the Life of 
thought may find a large complement iu surround- 
ing things. But the higher thought, and the con- 
science, and the religious Life, can only perfect them- 
selves in God. To make the influence of Environ- 
ment stop with the natural world is to doom the 
spiritual nature to death. For the soul, like the 
body, can never perfect itself in isolation. The law 
for both is to be complete in the appropriate Envi- 
ronment. And the perfection to be sought in the 
spiritual world is a perfection of relation, a perfect 
adjustment of that which is becoming perfect to that 
which is perfect. 

The third problem, now simplified to a point, 
finally presents itself. Where do organism and 
Environment meet ? How does that which is be- 
coming perfect avail itself of its perfecting Environ- 
ment? And the answer is, just as in Nature. The 
condition is simply receptivity. And yet this is 
perhaps the least simple of all conditions. It is so 
simple that we will not act upon it. But there is no 
other condition. Christ has condensed the whole 
truth into one memorable sentence, " As the branch 
cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, 
no more can ye except ye abide in Me." And on 
the positive side, " He that abideth in Me the same 
bringeth forth much fruit." 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 



" < So careful of the type f ' but no, 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, ' A thousand types are gone, 
I care for nothing, all shall go. 

4 Thou makest thine appeal to me ; 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but mean thy breath : 

Ikncno no more? And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair -, 
Such splendid pwpose in his eyes, 
Who rolVd the psalm to wintry skies, 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer^ 

Who trusted God ivas love indeed 
And love Creation's final laic — 
The? Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With rapine, shrieked against his creed — 

Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust 

Or eeaVd within the iron hills f " 

In Memoeiam. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

" Until Christ be formed in you."— Paul. 

"The one end to which, in all living beings, the formative 
impulse is tending — the one scheme which the Archseus of 
the old speculators strives to carry out, seems to be to mould 
the offspring into the likeness of the parent. It is the first 
great law of reproduction, that the offspring tends to 
resemble its parent or parents more closely than anything 
else." — Huxley. 

If a botanist be asked the difference between an 
oak, a palm-tree, and a lichen, he will declare that 
they are separated from one another by the broadest 
line known to classification. Without taking into 
account the outward differences of size and form, 
the variety of flower and fruit, the peculiarities of 
leaf and branch, he sees even in their general 
architecture types of structure as distinct as Norman, 
Gothic and Egyptian. But if the first young germs 
of these three plants are placed before him and he 
is called upon to define the difference, he finds it 
impossible. He cannot even say which is which. 
Examined under the highest powers of the micro- 
scope they yield no clue. Analyzed by the chemist 
with all the appliances of his laboratory they keep 
their secret. 

The same experiment can be tried with the 

277 



278 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

embryos of animals. Take the ovule of the worm, 
the eagle, the elephant, and of man himself. Let 
the most skilled observer apply the most searching 
tests to distinguish one from the other and he will 
fail. But there is something more surprising still. 
Compare next the two sets of germs, the vegetable 
and the animal. And there is still no shade of 
difference. Oak and palm, worm and man all start 
in life together. No matter into what strangely 
different forms they may afterwards develop, no 
matter whether they are to live on sea or land, creep 
or fly, swim or walk, think or vegetate, in the 
embryo as it first meets the eye of Science they are 
indistinguishable. The apple which fell in Newton's 
Garden, Newton's dog Diamond, and Newton him- 
self, began life at the same point.* 

If we analyze this material point at which all life 

* "There is, indeed, a period in the development of every 
tissue and every living thing known to us when there are 
actually no structural peculiarities whatever — when the 
whole organism consists of transparent, structureless, 
semi-fluid living bioplasm — when it would not be possible 
to distinguish the growing moving matter which was to 
evolve the oak from that which was the germ of a 
vertebrate animal. Nor can any difference be discerned 
between the bioplasm matter of the lowest, simplest, 
epithelial scale of man's organism and that from which the 
nerve cells of his brain are to be evolved. Neither by 
studying bioplasm under the microscope nor by any kind of 
physical or chemical investigation known, can we form any 
notion of the nature of the substance which is to be formed 
by the bioplasm, or what will be the ordinary results of the 
living."—" Bioplasm," Lionel S. Beale, F. R. S., pp. 17, 18. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 279 

starts, we shall find it to consist of a clear structure- 
less, jelly-like substance resembling albumen or white 
of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen 
and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is 
not only the structural unit with which all living 
bodies start in life, but with which they are sub- 
sequently built up. " Protoplasm," says Huxlej^, 
"simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. 
It is the clay of the Potter." "Beast and fowl, 
reptile and fish, mollusk, worm and polype are all 
composed of structural units of the same character, 
namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus."* 

What then determines the difference between 
different animals ? What makes one little speck of 
protoplasm grow into Newton's dog Diamond, and 
another, exactly the same, into Newton himself ? It 
is a mysterious something which has entered into 
this protoplasm. No eye can see it. No science 
can define it. There is a different something for 
Newton's dog and a different something for New- 
ton ; so that though both use the same matter they 
build it up in these widely different wa}^s. Proto- 
plasm being the clay, this something is the Potter. 
And as there is only one clay and yet all these 
curious forms are developed out of it, it follows 
necessarily that the difference lies in the potters. 
There must in short be as many potters as there are 
forms. There is the potter who segments the worm, 
and the potter who builds up the form of the dog, 
and the potter who moulds the man. To under- 
* Huxley : " Lay Sermons," 6th Ed., pp. 127, 129. 



280 NATURAL LAW IX THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

stand unmistakably that it is really the potter who* 
does the work, let us follow for a moment a descrip 
tion of the process by a trained eye-witness. The 
observer is Mr. Huxlev. Through the tube of his 
microscope he is watching the development, out of 
a speck of protoplasm, of one of the commonest 
animals : " Strange possibilities," he says, " lie dor- 
mant in that semi-fluid globule. Let a moderate sup- 
ply of warmth reach its watery cradle and the plastic 
matter undergoes changes so rapid and vet so stead v 
and purposelike in their succession that one can only 
compare them to those operated by a skilled model- 
ler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invis- 
ible trowel the mass is divided and subdivided into 
smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced to an 
aggregation of granules not too large to build withal 
the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, 
then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to 
be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the 
contour of the body; pinching up the head at one 
end. the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and 
limb into due proportions in so artistic a way, that, 
after watching the process hour by hour, one is 
almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, that 
some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic 
would show the hidden artist, with his plan before 
him, striving with skillful manipulation to perfect 
his work.'' * 

Besides the fact, so luminously brought out here, 
that the artist is distinct from the " semi-fluid 

* Huxley : " Lav Sermons."' 6th Ed., p. 261. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 281 

globule " of protoplasm in which he works, there is 
this other essential point to notice, that in all his 
" skillful manipulation " the artist is not working at 
random, but according to law. He has " his plan 
before him." In the zoological laboratory of Nature 
it is not as in a workshop where a skilled artisan can 
turn his hand to anything — where the same potter 
one day moulds a dog, the next u bird, and the next 
a man. In Nature one potter is set apart to make 
each. It is a more complete system of division of 
labor. One artist makes all the dogs, another 
makes all the birds, a third makes all the men. 
Moreover, each artist confines himself exclusively 
to working out his own plan. He appears to have 
his own plan somewhat stamped upon himself, and 
his work is rigidly to reproduce himself. 

The Scientific Law by which this takes place is the 
Law of Conformity to Type. It is contained, to a 
large extent, in the ordinary Law of Inheritance ; 
or it may be considered as simply another way of 
stating what Darwin calls the Law of Unity of Type. 
Darwin defines it thus : " By Unity of Type is 
meant that fundamental agreement in structure 
which we see in organic beings of the same class, 
and which is quite independent of their habits of 
life." * According to this law every living thing 
that comes into the world is compelled to stamp 
upon its offspring the image of itself. The dog, 
according to its type, produces a dog ; the bird a 
bird. 

* " Origin of Species," p. 166. 



282 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

The Artist who operates upon matter in this 
subtle way and carries out this law is Life. There 
are a great many different kinds of Life. If one 
might give the broader meaning to the words of the 
apostle : " All life is not the same life. There is 
one kind of life of men, another life of beasts, an- 
other of fishes, and another of birds." There is the 
Life, or the Artist,. or the Potter who segments the 
worm, the potter who forms the dog, the potter 
who moulds the man.* 

What goes on then in the animal kingdom is this 
— the Bird-Life seizes upon the bird-germ and builds 
it up into a bird, the image of itself. The Reptile- 
Life seizes upon another germinal speck, assimilates 
surrounding matter, and fashions it into a reptile. 
The Reptile-Life thus simply makes an incarnation of 
itself. The visible bird is simply an incarnation of 
the invisible Bird-Life. 

Now we are nearing the point where the spiritual 
analogy appears. It is a very wonderful analogy, so 
wonderful that one almost hesitates to put it into 

* There is no intention here to countenance the old doctrine 
of the permanence of species. Whether the word species 
represents a fixed quantity or the reverse does not affect the 
question. The facts as stated are true in contemporary 
zoology if not in palaeontology. It may also be added that 
the general conception of a definite Vital Principle is used 
here simply as a working hypothesis. Science may yet have 
to give up what the Germans call the " ontogenetic directive 
Force." But in the absence of any proof to the contrary, 
and especially of any satisfactory alternative, we are justified 
in working still with the old theory. 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 283 

words. Yet Nature is reverent ; and it is her voice 
to which we listen. These lower phenomena of life, 
she says, are but an allegory. There is another kind 
of Life of which Science as yet has taken little 
cognizance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up 
an organism into its own form. It is the Christ- 
Life. As the Bird-Life builds up a bird, the image 
of itself, so the Christ-Life builds up a Christ the 
image of Himself, in the inward nature of man. 
When a man becomes a Christian the natural process 
is this : The Living Christ enters into his soul. DeveL 
opment begins. The quickening Life seizes upon the 
soul, assimilates surrounding elements, and begins 
to fashion it. According to the great Law of Con- 
formity to Type this fashioning takes a specific form. 
It is that of the Artist who fashions. And all 
through Life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet 
perfectly definite process, goes on " until Christ be 
formed " in it. 

The Christian Life is not a vague effort after 
righteousness — an ill-defined pointless struggle for 
an ill-defined pointless end. Religion is no dis- 
hevelled mass of aspiration, prayer, and faith. There 
is no more mystery in Religion as to its processes 
than in Biology. There is much mystery in Biology. 
We know all but nothing of Life yet, nothing of 
development. There is the same mystery in the 
spiritual Life. But the great lines are the same, as 
decided, as luminous ; and the laws of natural and 
spiritual are the same, as unerring, as simple. Will 
everything else in the natural world unfold its order, 



234 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

and yield to Science more and more a vision of har- 
mony and Religion, which should complement and 
perfect all, remain a chaos ? From the standpoint of 
Revelation no truth is more obscure than Conformity 
to Type. If Science can furnish a companion pheno- 
menon from an every-day process of the natural life, 
it may at least throw this most mystical doctrine of 
Christianity into thinkable form. Is there any 
fallacy in speaking of the Embryology of the New- 
Life ? Is the analogy invalid ? Are there not vital 
processes in the Spiritual as well as in the Natural 
world ? The Bird being an incarnation of the Bird- 
Life, may not the Christian be a spiritual incarnation 
of the Christ-Life ? And is there not a real justifi- 
cation in the processes of the New Birth for such 
a parallel % 

Let us appeal to the record of these processes. 

In what terms does the N"ew Testament describe 
them % The answer is sufficiently striking. It uses 
everywhere the language of Biology. It is im- 
possible that the New Testament writers should 
have been familiar with these biological facts. It is 
impossible that their views of this great truth should 
have been as clear as Science can make them now. 
But they had no alternative. There w T as no other 
way of expressing this truth. It w^as a biological 
question. So they struck out unhesitatingly into the 
new field of words, and, with an originality which 
commands both reverence and surprise, stated their 
truth with such light, or darkness, as they had. 
They did not mean to be scientific, only to be 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 285 

accurate, and their fearless accuracy has made them 
scientific. 

What could be more original, for instance, than the 
Apostle's reiteration that the Christian was a new 
creature, a new man, a babe ? * Or that this new 
man was " begotten of God," God's workmanship ? f 
And what could be a more accurate expression of the 
law of Conformity to Type than this : " Put on the 
new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the 
image of Him that created him "? J Or this, "We 
are changed into the same image from glory to 
glory " ? § And elsewhere we are expressly told by 
the same writer that this Conformity is the end and 
goal of the Christian life. To work this Type in us 
is the whole purpose of God and mau. " Whom 
He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be 
conformed to the ima^e of His Son." II 

One must confess that the originality of this entire 
New Testament conception is most startling. Even 
for the nineteenth centry it is most startling. But 
when one remembers that such an idea took form in 
the first, he cannot fail to be impressed with a deep- 
ening wonder at the system which begat and cher- 
ished it. Men seek the origin of Christianity among 
the philosophies of that age. Scholars contrast it 
still with these philosophies, and scheme to fit it in 
to those of later growth Has it never occurred to 
them how much more it is than a philosopy, that 

* 2 Cor. v. 17. f 1 John v. 18 ; 1 Pet. i. 3. 

% Col. iii. 9, 10. § 2 Cor. iii. 18. 

1 Rom. viii. 29. 



286 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

it includes a science, a Biology pure and simple % 
As well might naturalists contrast zoology with 
chemistry, or seek to incorporate geology with 
botany — the living with the dead — as try to explain 
the spiritual life in terms of mind alone. When 
will it be seen that the characteristic of the Chris- 
tian Religion is its Life, that a true theology must 
begin with a Biology ? Theology is the Science of 
God. "Why will men treat God as inorganic. 

If this analogy is capable of being worked out, we 
should expect answers to at least three questions. 

First : What corresponds to the protoplasm in the 
spiritual sphere ? 

Second : What is the Life, the Hidden Artist who 
fashions it ? 

Third : What do we know of the process and the 
plan % 

First : The Protoplasm. 

We should be forsaking the lines of nature were 
we to imagine for a moment that the new creature 
was to be formed out of nothing. Ex nihilo nihil 
— nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is un- 
beatable and indestructible ; Nature and man can 
only form and transform. Hence when a new animal 
is made, no new clay is made. Life merely enters 
into already existing matter, assimilates more of the 
same sort and re-builds it. The spiritual Artist 
works in the same way. He must have a peculiar 
kind of protoplasm, a basis of life, and that must be 
already existing. 

Now He finds this in the materials of character 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 287 

with which the natural man is previously provided, 
Mind and character, the will and the affections, the 
moral nature — these form the bases of spiritual life. 
To look in this direction for the protoplasm of the 
spiritual life is consistent with all analogy. The 
lowest or mineral world mainly supplies the material 
— and this is true even for insectivorous species — for 
the vegetable kingdom. The vegetable supplies the 
material for the animal. Next in turn, the animal 
furnishes material for the mental, and lastly, the 
mental for the spiritual. Each member of the series 
is complete only when the steps below it are com- 
plete ; the highest demands all. It is not necessary 
for the immediate purpose to go so far into the psy- 
chology either of the new creature or of the old as to 
define more clearly what these moral bases are. It 
is enough to discover that in this womb the new 
creature is to be born, fashioned out of the mental 
and moral parts, substance, or essence of the natural 
man. The only thing to be insisted upon is that in 
the natural man this mental and moral substance or 
basis is spiritually lifeless. However active the intel- 
lectual or moral life may be, from the point of view 
of this other Life it is dead. That which is flesh is 
flesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind of Life which 
constitutes the difference between the Christian and 
the not-a-Christian. It has not yet been " born of 
the Spirit." 

To show further that this protoplasm possesses the 
necessary properties of the normal protoplasm it will 
be necessary to examine in passing what these prop- 



288 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

erties are. They are two in number, the capacity 
for life and plasticity. Consider first the capacity 
for life. It is not enough to find an adequate supply 
of material. That material must be of the right 
kind. For all kinds of matter have not the power to 
be the vehicle of life — all kinds of matter are not 
even fitted to be the vehicle of electricity. What 
peculiarity there is in Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, 
and Mtrogen, when combined in a certain way, to 
receive life, we cannot tell. We only know that life 
is always associated in Nature with this particular 
physical basis and never with any other. But we are 
not in the same darkness with regard to the moral 
protoplasm. When we look at this complex com- 
bination which we have predicated as the basis of 
spiritual life, we do find something which gives it a 
peculiar qualification for being the protoplasm of the 
Christ-Life. We discover one strong reason at least, 
not only why this kind of life should be associated 
with this kind of protoplasm, but why it should never 
be associated with other kinds which seem to 
resemble it — why, for instance, this spiritual life 
should not be engrafted upon the intelligence of 
a dog or the instinct of an ant. 

The protoplasm in man has a something in ad- 
dition to its instincts or its habits. It has a 
capacity for God. In this capacity for God lies 
its receptivity ; it is the very protoplasm that was 
necessary. The chamber is not only ready to 
receive the new Life, but the Guest is expected, 
and, till He comes, is missed. Till then the soul 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 289 

longs and yearns, wastes and pines, waving its 
tentacles piteously in the empty air, feeling after God 
if so be that it may find Him. This is not peculiar 
to the protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every 
land and in every age there have been altars to the 
Known or Unknown God. It is now agreed as a 
mere question of anthropology that the universal 
language of the human soul has always been " I 
perish with hunger." This is what fits it for Christ. 
There is a grandeur in this cry from the depths which 
makes its very unhappiness sublime. 

The other quality we are to look for in the soul is 
mouldableness, plasticity. Conformity demands con- 
formability. Now plasticit}^ is not only a marked 
characteristic of all forms of life, but in a special 
sense of the highest forms. It increases steadily as 
we rise in the scale. The inorganic world, to begin 
with, is rigid. A crystal of silica dissolved and re- 
dissolved a thousand times will never assume any 
other form than the hexagonal. The plant next, 
though plastic in its elements, is comparatively insus- 
ceptible of change. The very fixity of its sphere, 
the imprisonment for life in a single spot of earth, is 
the symbol of a certain degradation. The animal in 
all its parts is mobile, sensitive, free; the highest 
animal, man, is the most mobile, the most at leisure 
from routine, the most impressionable, the most open 
for change. And when we reach the mind and soul, 
this mobility is found in its most developed form. 
Whether we regard its susceptibility to impressions, 
its lightning-like response even to influences the most 
*9 



290 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

impalpable and subtle, its power of instantaneous 
adjustment, or whether we regard the delicacy and 
variety of its moods, or its vast powers of growth, we 
are forced to recognize in this the most perfect 
capacity for change. The marvellous plasticity of 
mind contains at once the possibility and prophecy of 
its transformation. The soul, in a word, is made to 
be converted. 

Second, the Life. 

The main reason for giving the Life, the agent of 
this change, a separate treatment, is to emphasize 
the distinction between it and the natural man on the 
one hand, and the spiritual man on the other. The 
natural man is its basis, the spiritual man is its 
product, the Life itself is something different. Just 
as in an oro-anism we have these three things — 
formative matter, formed matter, and the forming 
principle or life; so in the soul we have the old 
nature, the renewed nature, and the transforming 
Life. 

This being made evident, little remains here to 
be added. ZSTo man has ever seen this Life. It 
cannot be analyzed, or weighed, or traced in its 
essential nature. But this is just what we expected. 
This invisibility is the same property which we found 
to be peculiar to the natural life. ^Te saw no life in 
the first embryos, in oak, in palm, or in bird. In the 
adult it likewise escapes us. We shall not wonder 
if we cannot see it in the Christian. TTe shall not 
expect to see it. A fortiori we shall not expect to 
see it. for we are further removed from the coarser 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 291 

matter — moving now among ethereal and spiritual 
thing's. It is because it conforms to the law of this 
analogy so well that men, not seeing it, have denied 
its being. Is it hopeless to point out that one of the 
most recognizable characteristics of life is its un- 
recognizableness, and that the very token of its 
spiritual nature lies in its being beyond the grossness 
of our eyes ? 

We do not pretend that Science can define this 
Life to be Christ. It has no definition to give even 
of its own life, much less of this. But there are con- 
verging lines which point, at least, in the direction 
that it is Christ. There was One whom history ac- 
knowledges to have been the Truth. One of His 
claims was this, " I am the Life." According to the 
doctrine of Biogenesis, life can only come from life. 
It was His additional claim that His function in the 
world was to give men Life. " I am come that ye 
might have Life, and that ye might have it more 
abundantly." This could not refer to the natural 
life, for men had that already. He that hath the 
Son hath another Life. " Know ye not your own 
selves how that Jesus Christ is in you." 

Again, there are men whose characters assume 
a strange resemblance to Him who was the Life. 
"When we see the bird -character appear in an organ- 
ism we assume that the Bird-Life has been there 
at work. And when we behold Conformity to Type 
in a Christian, and know moreover that the type- 
organization can be produced by the type-life alone, 
does this not lend support to the hypothesis that the 



292 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Type-life also has been here at work? If every 
effect demands a cause, what other cause is there 
for the Christian ? When we have a cause, and an 
adequate cause, and no other adequate cause ; when 
we have the express statement of that Cause that 
he is that cause, what more is possible? Let not 
Science, knowing nothing of its own life, go further 
than to say it knows nothing of this Life. We shall 
not dissent from its silence. But till it tells us what 
it is, we wait for evidence that it is not this. 

Third, the Process. 

It is impossible to enter at length into any details 
of the great miracle by which this protoplasm is to 
be conformed to the Image of the Son. We enter 
that province now only so far as this Law of Con- 
formity compels us. ISTor is it so much the nature 
of the process we have to consider as its general 
direction and results. We are dealing with a ques- 
tion of morphology rather than of physiology. 

It must occur to one on reaching this point, that 
a new element here comes in which compels us, for 
the moment, to part company with zoology. That 
element is the conscious power of choice. The 
animal in following the type is blind. It does not 
only follow the type involuntarily and compulsorily, 
but does not know that it is following it. We might 
certainly have been made to conform to the Type 
in the higher sphere with no more knowledge or 
power of choice than animals or automata. But 
then we should not have been men. It is a possible 
case, but not possible to the kind of protoplasm with 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 293 

which men are furnished. Owing to the peculiar 
characteristics of this protoplasm an additional and 
exceptional provision is essential. 

The first demand is that being conscious and 
having this power of choice, the mind should have 
an adequate knowledge of what it is to choose. 
Some revelation of the Type, that is to say, is nec- 
essary. And as that revelation can only come 
from the Type, we must look there for it. 

We are confronted at once with the Incarnation. 
There we find how the Christ-Life has clothed 
Himself with matter, taking literal flesh, and dwelt 
among us. The Incarnation is the Life revealing 
the Type. Men are long since agreed that this is 
the end of the Incarnation — the revealing of God. 
But why should God be revealed? Why, indeed, 
but for man ? Why but that " beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the only begotten we should be 
changed into the same Image \ " 

To meet the power of choice, however, something 
more was necessary than the mere revelation of the 
Type — it was necessary that the Type should be the 
highest conceivable Type. In other words, the Type 
must be an Ideal. For all true human growth, 
effort, and achievement, an ideal is acknowledged to 
be indispensable. And all men accordingly whose 
lives are based on principle, have set themselves an 
ideal, more or less perfect. It is this which first 
deflects the will from what is base, and turns the 
wayward life to what is holy. So much is true as 
mere philosophy. But philosophy failed to present 



29i NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, 
men with their ideal. It has never been suor^ested 

CO 

that Christianity has failed. Believers and unbe- 
lievers have been compelled to acknowledge that 
Christianity holds up to the world the missing Type, 
the Perfect Alan. 

The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the 
direction of Conformity. Bat let it be clearly ob- 
served that it is but a step. There is no vital con- 
nection between merelv seems: the Ideal and being 
conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ who 
never become Christians. 

But the great question still remains, How is the 
Christian to be conformed to the Type, or as we 
should now say, dealing with consciousness, to the 
Ideal ? The mere knowledge of the Ideal is no more 
than a motive. How is the process to be practically 
accomplished ? TTho is to do it ? Where, when, 
how ? This is the test question of Christianity. It 
is here that all theories of Christianity, all attempts 
to explain it on natural principles, all reductions of 
it to philosophy, inevitably break down. It is here 
that all imitations of Christianity perish. It is here, 
also, that personal religion finds its most fatal ob- 
stacle. Men are all quite clear about the Ideal. TTe 
are all convinced of the dutv of mankind regarding 
it. But how to secure that willing men shall attain 
it — that is the problem of religion. It is the failure 
to understand the dynamics of Christianity that has 
most seriously and most pitifully hindered its growth 
both in the individual and in the race. 

From the standpoint of biology this practical 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 295 

difficulty vanishes in a moment. It is probably the 
very simplicity of the law regarding it that has 
made men stumble. For nothing is so invisible to 
most men as transparency. The law here is the 
same biological law that exists in the natural world. 
For centuries men have striven to find out ways 
and means to conform themselves to this type. 
Impressive motives have been pictured, the proper 
circumstances arranged, the direction of effort de- 
fined, and men have toiled, struggled, and agonized 
to conform themselves to the Image of the Son. 
Can the protoplasm conform itself to its type ? 
Can the embryo fashion itself? Is Conformity to 
Type produced by the matter or by the life, by 
the protoplasm or by the Type? Is organization 
the cause of life or the effect of it ? It is the 
effect of it. Conformity to Ty pe, therefore, is secured 
by the type. Christ makes the Christian. 

Men need only to reflect on the automatic processes 
of their natural body to discover that this is the 
universal law of Life. What does any man con- 
sciously do, for instance, in the matter of breathing ? 
What part does he take in circulating the blood, in 
keeping up the rhythm of his heart ? What control 
has he over growth % What man by taking thought 
can add a cubit to his stature ? What part volun- 
tarily does man take in secretion, in digestion, in 
the reflex actions ? In point of fact is he not 
after all the veriest automaton, every organ of his 
body given him, every function arranged for him, 
brain and nerve, thought and sensation, will and 



296 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

conscience, all provided for him ready made ? And 
yet he turns upon his soul and wishes to organize 
that himself ! O preposterous and vain man, thou 
who couldest not make a finger nail of thy body, 
thinkest thou to fashion this wonderful, myste- 
rious, subtle soul of thine after the ineffable Image ? 
Wilt thou ever permit thyself to he conformed to 
the Image of the Son ? Wilt thou, who canst not 
add a cubit to thy stature, submit to he raised by 
the Type-Life within thee to the perfect stature of 
Christ ? 

This is a humbling conclusion. And therefore 
men will resent it. Men will still experiment " by 
works of righteousness which they have done " to 
earn the Ideal life. The doctrine of Human In- 
ability, as the Church calls it, has always been 
objectionable to men who do not know themselves. 
The doctrine itself, perhaps, has been partly to 
blame. While it has been often affirmed in such 
language as rightly to humble men, it has also 
been stated and cast in their teeth with words 
which could only insult them. Merely to assert 
dogmatically that man has no power to move hand 
or foot to help himself toward Christ, carries no 
real conviction. The weight of human authority is 
always powerless, and ought to be where the in- 
telligence is denied a rationale. In the light of 
modern science when men seek a reason for even r 
thought of God or man, this old doctrine with its 
severe and almost inhuman aspect — till rightly un- 
derstood — must presently have succumbed. But to 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 297 

the biologist it cannot die. It stands to him on the 
solid ground of Nature. It has a reason in the law 
of life which must resuscitate it and give it another 
lease of years. Bird-Life makes the Bird. Christ- 
Life makes the Christian. No man by taking 
thought can add a cubit to his stature. 

So much for the scientific evidence. Here is the 
corresponding statement of the truth from Scripture. 
Observe the passive voice in these sentences : " Be- 
gotten of God ; " " The new man which is renewed 
in knowledge after the Image of him that created 
him ; " or this, " We are changed into the same 
Image ; " or this, " Predestinate to he conformed to 
the Image of His Son ; " or again, " Until Christ 
he formed in } r ou ; " or " Except a man he horn 
again he cannot see the Kingdom of God ; " " Ex- 
cept a man he horn of water and of the Spirit he 
cannot enter the Kingdom of God." There is one 
outstanding verse which seems at first sight on the 
other side : " Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling ; " but as one reads on he finds, 
as if the writer dreaded the very misconception, 
the complement, " For it is God which worketh in 
you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." 

It will be noticed in these passages, and in others 
which might be named, that the process of trans- 
formation is referred indifferently to the agency of 
each Person of the Trinity in turn. We are not 
concerned to take up this question of detail. It 
is sufficient that the transformation is wrought. 

Theologians, however, distinguish thus : the indirect 



298 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

agent is Christ, the direct influence is the Holy 
Spirit. In other words, Christ by His Spirit renews 
the souls of men. 

Is man, then, out of the arena altogether? Is 
he mere clay in the hands of the potter, a machine, 
a tool, an automaton ? Yes and No. If he were a 
tool he would not ' be a man. If he were a man 
he would have something to do. One need not 
seek to balance what God does here, and what man 
does. But we shall attain to a sufficient measure 
of truth on a most delicate problem if we make a 
final appeal to the natural life. We find that in 
maintaining this natural life Nature has a share and 
man has a share. By far the larger part is done 
for us — the breathing, the secreting, the circulating, 
of the blood, the building up of the organism. And 
although the part which man plays is a minor part, 
yet, strange to say, it is not less essential to the 
well-being, and even to the being of the whole. 
For instance, man has to take food. He has noth- 
ing to do with it after he has once taken it, for 
the moment it passes his lips it is taken in hand 
by reflex actions and handed on from one organ to 
another, his control over it, in the natural course 
of things, being completely lost. But the initial 
act was his. And without that nothing could have 
been done. Now whether there be an exact analogy 
between the voluntary and involuntary functions in 
the body, and the corresponding processes in the 
soul we do not at present inquire. But this will 
indicate, at least, that man has his own part to 



CONFORMITY TO TYt>& 299 

play. Let him choose Life; let him daily nourish 
his soul ; let him for ever starve the old life ; let 
him abide continuously as a living branch in the 
Vine, and the True-Yine Life will flow into his 
soul ; assimilating, renewing, confirming to Type, till 
Christ, pledged by His own law, be formed in him. 

We have been dealing with Christianity at its 
most mystical point. Mark here once more its 
absolute naturalness. The pursuit of the Type is 
just what all Nature is engaged in. Plant and insect, 
fish and reptile, bird and mammal — these in their 
several spheres are striving after the Type. To 
prevent its extinction, to ennoble it, to people earth 
and sea and sky with it ; this is the meaning of the 
Struggle for Life. And this is our life — to pursue 
the Type, to populate the world with it. 

Our religion is not all a mistake. We are not 
visionaries. We are not "unpractical," as men 
pronounce us, when we worship. To try to follow 
Christ is not to be "righteous overmuch." True 
men are not rhapsodizing when they preach ; nor 
do those waste their lives who waste themselves in 
striving to extend the Kingdom of God on earth. 
This is what life is for. The Christian in his life- 
aim is in strict line with Nature. What men call 
his supernatural is quite natural. 

Mark well also the splendor of this idea of 
salvation. It is not merely final " safety," to be for- 
given sin, to evade the curse. It is not, vaguely, 
" to get to heaven." It is to be conformed to the 
Image of the Son. It is for these poor elements to 



300 NATURAL LAW IX THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

attain to the Supreme Beauty. The organizing Life 
being Eternal, so must this Beauty be immortal. Its 
progress towards the Immaculate is already guar- 
anteed. And more than all there is here fulfilled 
the sublimest of all prophecies ; not Beauty alone 
but Unity is secured by the type — Unity of man 
and man, God and man, God and Christ and man, 
till " all shall be one." 

Could Science in its most brilliant anticipations 
for the future of its highest organism ever have fore- 
shadowed a development like this? Xow that the 
revelation is made to it. it surely recognizes it as the 
missing point in Evolution, the climax to which all 
Creation tends. Hitherto Evolution had no future. 
It was a pillar with marvellous carving, growing 
richer and liner towards the top, but without a 
capital ; a pyramid, the vast base buried in the 
inorganic, towering 1 higher and higher, tier above tier, 
life above life, mind above mind, ever more perfect 
in its workmanship, more noble in its symmetry, and 
yet withal so much the more mysterious in its aspira- 
tion. The most curious eye, following it upwards, 
saw nothing. The cloud fell and covered it. Just 
what men wanted to see was hid. The work of the 
ages had no apex. But the vrork begun by Xature 
is finished by the Supernatural — as we are wont to 
call the higher natural. And as the veil is lifted by 
Christianity it strikes men dumb with wonder. For 
the goal of Evolution is Jesus Christ. 

The Christian life is the only life that will ever be 
completed. Apart from Christ the life of man is 



CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 301 

a broken pillar, the race of Men an unfinished 
pryamicl. One by one in sight of Eternity all human 
Ideals fall short, one by one before the open grave 
all human hopes dissolve. The Laureate sees a 
moment's light in Nature's jealousy for the Type, 
but that too vanishes. 

" * So careful of the type ? ' but no 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, ' A thousand types are gone ; 
I care for nothing, all shall go.' " 

All shall go ? No, one Type remains. " Whom He 
did foreknow He also did predestinate to be con- 
formed to the Image of His Son." And " when 
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also 
appear with Him in glory." 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 



a The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was 
never yet occupied by 'man. Yes, here, in this poor, 
miserable, hampered* despicable Actual, wherein thou 
even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal : work it 
out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free" 

Cablyle. 



SEMI-PAEASITISM. 

" Work out your own salvation." — Paul. 

" Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which 
render ifes food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead 
as a rule to degeneration." — E, Ray Lankester. 

Parasites are the paupers of Nature. They are 
forms of life which will not take the trouble to find 
their own food, but borrow or steal it from the more 
industrious. So deep-rooted is this tendency in 
Nature, that plants may become parasitic — it is an 
acquired habit — as well as animals ; and both are 
found in every state of beggary, some doing a little 
for themselves, while others, more abject, refuse even 
to prepare their own food. 

There are certain plants — the Dodder, for instance 
— which begin life with the best intentions, strike 
true roots into the soil, and really appear as if they 
meant to be independent for life. But after support- 
ing themselves for a brief period they fix curious 
sucking discs into the stem and branches of adja- 
cent plants. And after a little experimenting, the 
epiphyte finally ceases to do anything for its own 
support, thenceforth drawing all its supplies ready- 
made from the sap of its host. In this parasitic state 

it has no need for organs of nutrition of its own, and 

20 305 



306 NATURAL LAW IX THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 

Nature therefore takes them away. Henceforth, to 
the botanist, the adult Dodder presents the degraded 
spectacle of a plant without a root, without a twig, 
without a leaf, and having a stem so useless as to be 
inadequate to bear its own weight. 

In the Mistletoe the parasitic habit has reached a 
stage in some respects lower still. It has persisted 
in the downward course for so many generations that 
the young forms even have acquired the habit and 
usually begin life at once as parasites. The Mistletoe 
berries, which contain the seed of the future plant, are 
developed specially to minister to this degeneracy, for 
they glue themselves to the branches of some neigh- 
boring oak or apple, and there the young Mistletoe 
starts as a dependent from the first. 

Among animals these lazzaroni are more largely 
respresented stilh Almost every animal is a living 
poor-house, and harbors one or more species of 
ej?izoa or erdozoa. supplying them gratis, not only 
with a permanent home, but with all the necessaries 
and luxuries of life. 

Why does the naturalist think hardly of the 
parasites ? "Why does he speak of them as degraded, 
and despise them as the most ignoble creatures in 
Nature \ What more can an animal do than eat, 
drink, and die to-morrow \ If under the fostering 
care and protection of a higher organism it can eat 
better, drink more easily, live more merrily, and die, 
perhaps not until the day after, why should it not do 
so ? Is parasitism, after all, not a somewhat clever 
ruse? Is it not an ingenious wav of securing the 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 307 

benefits of life while evading its responsibilities? 
And although this mode of livelihood is selfish, and 
possibly undignified, can it be said that it is im- 
moral ? 

The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Parasitism, 
he will say, is one of the gravest crimes in Nature. 
It is a breach of the law of Evolution. Thou shalt 
evolve, thou shalt develop all thy faculties to the 
full, thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable 
perfection of thy race — and so perfect thy race — this 
is the first and greatest commandment of Nature. 
But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for 
perfection in any shape or form. It wants two 
things — food and shelter. How it gets them is of 
no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its 
own account, an isolated, indolent, selfish, and back- 
sliding life. 

The remarkable thing is that Nature permits the 
community to be taxed in this way apparently with- 
out protest. For the parasite is a consumer pure 
and simple. And the " Perfect Economy of Nature " 
is surely for once at fault when it encourages species 
numbered by thousands which produce nothing for 
their own or for the general good, but live, and live 
luxuriously, at the expense of others % 

Now when we look into the matter, we very soon 
perceive that instead of secretly countenancing this 
ingenious device by which parasitic animals and 
plants evade the great law of the Struggle for Life 
Nature sets her face most sternly against it. And 
instead of allowing the transgressors to slip through 



308 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

her fingers, as one might at first suppose, she visits 
upon them the most severe and terrible penalties. 
The parasite, she argues, not only injures itself, but 
wrongs others. It disobeys the fundamental law of its 
own being, and taxes the innocent to contribute to its 
disgrace. So that if ^Nature is just, if Xature has an 
avenging hand, if she holds one vial of wrath more 
full and bitter than another, it shall surely be poured 
out upon those who are guilty of this double sin. 
Let us see what form this punishment takes. 

Observant visitors to the sea-side, or let us say to 
an aquarium, are familiar with those curious little 
creatures known as Hermit-crabs. The peculiarity 
of the Hermits is that they take up their abode in 
the cast-off shell of some other animal, not unusuallv 
the whelk ; and here, like Diogenes in his tub, the 
creature lives a solitary, but by no means an inactive 
life. 

The Pagurus, however, is not a parasite. And 
yet although in no sense of the word a parasite, this 
way of inhabiting throughout life a house built by 
another animal approaches so closely the parasitic 
habit, that we shall find it instructive as a prelimi- 
nary illustration, to consider the effect of this free- 
house policy on the occupant. There is no doubt, to 
begin with, that, as has been already indicated, the 
habit is an acquired one. In its general anatomy the 
Hermit is essentially a crab. Kow the crab is an 
animal which, from the nature of its environment, 
has to lead a somewhat rough and perilous life. Its 
days are spent amongst jagged rocks and boulders. 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 309 

Dashed about by every wave, attacked on every side 
by monsters of the deep, the crustacean has to pro- 
tect itself by developing a strong and serviceable 
coat of mail. 

How best to protect themselves has been the prob- 
lem to which the whole crab famil} 7 have addressed, 
themselves ; and, in considering the matter, the 
ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit on the happy de- 
vice of re-utilizing the habitations of the molluscs 
which lay around them in plenty, well-built, and 
ready for immediate occupation. For generations 
and generations accordingly, the Hermit-crab has 
ceased to exercise itself upon questions of safety, 
and dwells in its little shell as proudly and securely 
as if its second-hand house were a fortress erected 
especially for its private use. 

"Wherein, then, has the Hermit suffered for this 
cheap, but real solution of a practical difficulty? 
Whether its laziness costs it any moral qualms, or 
whether its cleverness becomes to it a source of con- 
gratulation, we do not know ; but judged from the 
appearance the animal makes under the searching 
gaze of the zoologist, its expedient is certainly not 
one to be commended. To the eye of Science its sin 
is written in the plainest characters on its very 
organization. It has suffered in its own anatomical 
structure just by as much as it has borrowed from 
an external source. Instead of being a perfect 
crustacean it has allowed certain important parts of 
its body to deteriorate. And several vital organs 
are partially or wholly atrophied. 



310 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Its sphere of life also is now seriously limited ; 
and by a cheap expedient to secure safety, it has 
fatally lost its independence. It is plain from its 
anatomy that the Hermit-crab was not always a 
Hermit-crab. It was meant for higher things. Its 
ancestors doubtless were more or less perfect crus- 
taceans, though what exact stage of development 
was reached before the hermit habit became fixed in 
the species we cannot tell. But from the moment 
the creature took to relying on an external source, 
it began to fall. It slowly lost in its own person all 
that it now draws from external aid. 

As an important item in the day's work, namely, 
the securing of safety and shelter, was now guaran- 
teed to it, one of the chief inducements to a life of 
high and vigilant effort was at the same time with- 
drawn. A number of functions, in fact, struck work. 
The whole of the parts, therefore, of the complex 
organism which ministered to these functions, from 
lack of exercise, or total disuse, became gradually 
feeble; and ultimately, by the stern law that an un- 
used organ must suffer a slow but inevitable atrophy, 
the creature not only lost all power of motion in 
these parts, but lost the parts themselves, and other- 
wise sank into a relatively degenerate condition. 

Every normal crustacean, on the other hand, has 
the abdominal region of the body covered by a thick 
chitinous shell. In the Hermits this is represented 
only by a thin and delicate membrane — of which 
the sorry figure the creature cuts when drawn from 
its foreign hiding-place is sufficient evidence. Any 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 311 

one who now examines further this half-naked and 
woe-begone object, will perceive also that the fourth 
and fifth pair of limbs are either so small and wasted 
as to be quite useless or altogether rudimentary ; and, 
although certainly the additional development of the 
extremity of the tail into an organ for holding on to 
its extemporized retreat maybe regarded as a slight 
compensation, it is clear from the whole structure of 
the animal that it has allowed itself to undergo 
severe Degeneration. 

In dealing with the Hermit-crab, in short, we are 
dealing with a case of physiological backsliding. 
That the creature has lost anything by this process 
from a practical point of view is not now argued. 
It might fairly be shown, as already indicated, that 
its freedom is impaired by its cumbrous eko-skeleton, 
and that, in contrast with other crabs, who lead a 
free and roving life, its independence generally is 
greatly limited. But from the physiological stand- 
point, there is no question that the Hermit tribe have 
neither discharged their responsibility to Nature nor 
to themselves. If the end of life is merely to escape 
death, and serve themselves, possibly they have done 
well ; but if it is to attain an ever-increasing perfec- 
tion, then are they backsliders indeed. 

A zoologist's verdict would be that by this act 
they have forfeited to some extent their place in the 
animal scale. An animal is classed as low or high 
according as it is adapted to less or more complex 
conditions of life. This is the true standpoint from 
which to judge all living organisms. Were perfection 



312 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

merely a matter of continual eating and drinking, 
the Amoeba — the lowest known organism — might 
take rank with the highest, Man, for the one nour- 
ishes itself and saves its skin almost as completely 
as the other. But judged by the higher standard of 
Complexity, that is, by greater or lesser adaptation 
to more or less complex conditions, the gulf between 
them is infinite. 

We have now received a preliminary idea, although 
not from the study of a true parasite, of the essential 
principles involved in a parasitism. And we may pro- 
ceed to point out the correlative in the moral and 
spiritual spheres. We confine ourselves for the 
present to one point. The difference between the 
Hermit-crab and a true parasite is, that the former 
has acquired a semi-parasitic habit only with refer- 
ence to safety. It may be that the Hermit devours 
as a preliminary the accommodating mollusc whose 
tenement it covets ; but it would become a real 
parasite only on the supposition that the whelk was 
of such size as to keep providing for it throughout 
life, and that the external and internal organs of the 
crab should disappear, while it lived henceforth, by 
simple imbibition, upon the elaborated juices of its 
host. All the mollusc provides, however, for the 
crustacean in this instance is safety, and, accordingly 
in the meantime we limit our application to this. 
The true parasite presents us with an organism so 
much more degraded in all its parts, that its lessons 
may well be reserved until we have paved the way 
to understand the deeper bearings of the subject. 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 313 

The spiritual principle to be illustrated in the 
meantime stands thus: Any principle which secures 
the safety of the individual without personal effort or 
the vital exercise of faculty is disastrous to moral 
character. We do not begin by attempting to define 
words. Were we to define truly what is meant by 
safety or salvation, we should be spared further elab- 
oration, and the law would stand out as a senten- 
tious common-place. But we have to deal with the 
ideas of safety as these are popularly held, and the 
chief purpose at this stage is to expose what may be 
called the Parasitic Doctrine of Salvation. The phases 
of religious experience about to be described may be 
unknown to many. It remains for those who are 
familiar with the religious conceptions of the masses 
to determine whether or not we are wasting words. 

What is meant by the Parasitic Doctrine of Salva- 
tion one may, perhaps, best explain by sketching two 
of its leading types. The first is the doctrine of the 
Church of Rome ; the second, that represented by 
the narrower Evangelical Religion. We take these 
religions, however, not in their ideal form, with which 
possibly we should have little quarrel, but in their 
practical working, or in the form in which they are 
held especially by the rank and file of those who 
belong respectively to these communions. For the 
strength or weakness of any religious system is best 
judged from the form in which it presents itself to, 
and influences the common mind. 

No more perfect or more sad example of semi- 
parasitism exists than in the case of those illiterate 



314 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

thousands who, scattered everywhere throughout 
the habitable globe, swell the lower ranks of the 
Church of Rome. Had an organization been spe- 
cially designed, indeed, to induce the parasitic habit 
in the souls of men, nothing better fitted to its dis- 
astrous end could be established than the system of 
Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism offers to 
the masses a molluscan shell. They have simply to 
shelter themselves within its pale, and they are 
" safe." But what is this " safe " ? It is an external 
safety — the safety of an institution. It is a salvation 
recommended to men by all that appeals to the 
motives in most common use with the vulgar and 
the superstitious, but which has as little vital connec- 
tion with the individual soul as the dead whelk's 
shell with the living Hermit. Salvation is a relation 
at once vital, personal, and spiritual. This is me- 
chanical and purely external. And this is of course 
the final secret of its marvellous success and world- 
wide power. A cheap religion is the desideratum of 
the human heart ; and an assurance of salvation at 
the smallest possible cost forms the tempting bait 
held out to a conscience-stricken world by the Romish 
Church. Thousands, therefore, who have never been 
taught to use their* faculties in " working out their 
own salvation," thousands who will not exercise 
themselves religiously, and who } T et cannot be with- 
out the exercises of religion, intrust themselves in 
idle faith to that venerable house of refuse which 
for centuries has stood between God and man. A 
Church which has harbored generations of the 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 315 

elect, whose archives enshrine the names of saints, 
whose foundations are consecrated with martyrs' 
blood — shall it not afford a sure asylum for any 
soul which would make its peace with God ? So, as 
the Hermit into the molluscan shell, creeps the poor 
soul within the pale of Eome, seeking, like Adam in 
the garden, to hide its nakedness from God. 

Why does the true lover of men restrain not 
his lips in warning his fellows against this and all 
other priestly religions ? It is not because he fails to 
see the prodigious energy of the Papal See, or to 
appreciate the many noble types of Christian man- 
hood nurtured within its pale. ISTor is it because its 
teachers are often corrupt and its system of doctrine 
inadequate as a representation of the Truth — charges 
which have to be made more or less against all re- 
ligions. But it is because it ministers falsely to the 
deepest need of man, reduces the end of religion 
to selfishness, and offers safety without spirituality. | 
That these, theoretically, are its pretensions, we do 
not affirm ; but that its practical working is to induce 
in man, and in its worst forms, the parasitic habit, is 
testified by results. No one who has studied the 
religion of the Continent upon the spot, has failed to 
be impressed with the appalling spectacle of tens of 
thousands of unregenerate men sheltering themselves, 
as they conceive it for Eternity, behind the Sacra- 
ments of Rome. 

There is no stronger evidence of the inborn para- 
sitic tendency in man in things religious than the 
absolute complacency with which even cultured men 



316 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, 

will hand over their eternal interests to the care of a 
Church. We can never dismiss from memory the 
sadness with which we once listened to the confession 
of a certain foreign professor: "I used to be con- 
cerned about religion," he said in substance, " but 
religion is a great subject. I was very busy ; there 
was little time to settle it for myself. A Protestant, 
my attention was called to the Roman Catholic 
religion. It suited my case. And instead of dab- 
bling in religion for myself I put myself in its hands. 
Once a year," he concluded, " I go to mass." These 
were the words of one whose work will live in the 
history of his country, one, too, who knew all about 
parasitism. Yet, though he thought it not, this is 
parasitism in its worst and most degrading form. 
Nor, in spite of its intellectual, not to say moral sin, 
is this an extreme or exceptional case. It is a case, 
which is being duplicated every day in our own 
country, only here the confession is expressed with a 
candor which is rare in company with actions be- 
traying so signally the want of it. 

The form of parasitism exhibited by a certain sec- 
tion of the narrower Evangelical school is altogether 
different from that of the Church of Rome. The 
parasite in this case seeks its shelter, not in a Church, 
but in a Doctrine or a Creed. Let it be observed 
again that we are not dealing with the Evangelical 
Religion, but only with one of its parasitic forms — a 
form which will at once be recognized by all who 
know the popular Protestantism of this country. We 
confine ourselves also at present to that form which 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 317 

finds its encouragement in a single doctrine, that 
doctrine being a Doctrine of the Atonement — let 
us say, rather, a perverted form of this central 
truth. 

The perverted Doctrine of the Atonement, which 
tends to beget the parasitic habit, may be defined in 
a single sentence — it is very much because it can be 
defined in a single sentence that it is a perversion. 
Let us state it in a concrete form. It is put to the 
individual in the following syllogism : " You believe 
Christ died for sinners ; you are a sinner ; therefore 
Christ died for you ; and hence you are saved." Now 
what is this but another species of molluscan shell ? 
Could any trap for a benighted soul be more ingen- 
iously planned? It is not superstition that is ap- 
pealed to this time ; it is reason. The agitated soul 
is invited to creep into the convolutions of a syllo- 
gism, and entrench itself behind a Doctrine more 
venerable even than the Church. But words are 
mere chitine. Doctrines mav have no more vital 
contact with the soul than priest or sacrament, no 
further influence on life and character than stone and 
lime. And yet the apostles of parasitism pick a 
blackguard from the streets, pass him through this 
plausible formula, and turn him out a convert in the 
space of as many minutes as it takes to tell it. 

The zeal of these men, assuredly, is not to be 
questioned ; their instincts are right, and their work 
is often not in vain. It is possible, too, up to a 
certain point, to defend this Salvation by Formula. 
Are these not the very words of Scripture? Did 



318 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

not Christ Himself say, " It is finished " ? And is it 
not written, " By grace are ye saved through faith," 
" Not of works, lest any man should boast," and " He 
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life " ? To 
which, however, one might also answer in the words 
of Scripture, " The Devils also believe," and " Except 
a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of 
God." Bat without seeming to make text refute 
text, let us ask rather what the supposed convert 
possesses at the end of the process. That Christ 
saves sinners, even blackguards from the street, is a 
great fact ; and that the simple words of the street 
evangelist do sometimes bring this home to man with 
convincing power is also a fact. But in ordinary 
circumstances, when the inquirer's mind is rapidly 
urged through the various stages of the above piece 
of logic, he is left to face the future and blot out the 
past with a formula of words. 

To be sure these words may alreadj^ convey a 
germ of truth, they may yet be filled in with a 
wealth of meaning and become a lifelong power. 
But we would state the case against Salvation by 
Formula with ignorant and unwarranted clemency 
did we for a moment convey the idea that this is 
always the actual result. The doctrine plays too 
well into the hands of the parasitic tendency to make 
it possible that in more than a minority of cases the 
result is anything but disastrous. And it is disas- 
trous not in that, sooner or later, after losing half 
their lives, those who rely on the naked syllogism 
come to see their mistake, but in that thousands 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 319 

never come to see it all. Are there not men who 
can prove to you and to the world, by the irresistible 
logic of text, that they are saved, whom you know 
to be not only unworthy of the Kingdom of God — 
which we all are — but absolutely incapable of enter- 
ing it ? The condition of membership in the King- 
dom of God is well known ; who fulfil this condition 
and who do not, is not well known. And yet the 
moral test, in spite of the difficulty of its applications, 
will always, and rightly, be preferred by the world to 
the theological. Nevertheless, in spite of the world's 
verdict, the parasite is content. He is " safe." Years 
ao*o his mind worked through a certain chain of 
phrases in which the words " believe "and " saved " 
were the conspicuous terms. And from that mo- 
ment, by all Scriptures, by all logic, and by all 
theology, his future was guaranteed. He took out 
in short, an insurance policy, by which he was in- 
fallibly secured eternal life at death. This is not a 
matter to make light of. We wish we were caricatur- 
ing instead of representing things as they are. But 
we carry with us all who intimately know the spiri- 
tual condition of the Narrow Church in asserting 
that in some cases at least its members have nothing 
more to show for their religion than a formula, a 
syllogism, a cant phrase or an experience of some 
kind which happened long ago, and which men told 
them at the time was called salvation. Need we 
proceed to formulate objections to the parasitism of 
Evangelicism ? Between it and the Religion of the 
Church of Rome there is an affinity as real as it is 



320 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

unsuspected. For one thing these religions are spiri- 
tually disastrous as well as theologically erroneous in 
propagating a false conception of Christianity. The 
fundamental idea alike of the extreme Roman 
Catholic and extreme Evangelical Religions is 
Escape. Man's chief end is to " get off." And all 
factors in religion, the highest and most sacred, are 
degraded to this level. God, for example, is a Great 
Lawyer. Or he is the Almighty Enemy ; it is from 
Him we have to " get off." Jesus Christ is the One 
who gets us off — a theological figure who contrives 
so to adiust matters federallv that the wav is clear. 

or «/ 

The Church in the one instance is a kind of con- 
veyancing office where the transaction is duly con- 
cluded, each party accepting the other's terms ; in 
the other case, a species of sheep-pen where the flock 
awaits impatiently and indolently the final consum- 
mation. Generally, the means are mistaken for the 
end, and the opening-up of the possibility of spiritual 
growth becomes the signal to stop growing. 

Second, these being cheap religions, are inevitably 
accompanied by a cheap life. Safety being guaran- 
teed from the first, there remains nothing else to 
be done. The mechanical way in which the trans- 
action is effected, leaves the soul without stimulus, 
and the character remains untouched by the moral 
aspects of the sacrifice of Christ. He who is unjust 
is unjust still ; he who is unholy is unholy still. 
Thus the whole scheme ministers to the Degenera- 
tion of Organs. For here, again, by just as much as 
the organism borrows mechanically from an external 



SEMI-PARASITISM. 321 

source, by so much exactly does it lose in its own 
organization. Whatever rest is provided by Chris- 
tianity for the children of God, it is certainly never 
contemplated that it should supersede personal effort. 
And any rest which ministers to indifference is im- 
moral and unreal — it makes parasites and not men. 
Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence 
and triumph of it, the true child of God works out 
his own salvation — works it out having really re- 
ceived it — not as a light thing, a superfluous labor, 
but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and 
indispensable service. 

If it be asked, then, shall the parasite be saved or 
shall he not, the answer is that the idea of salvation 
conveyed by the question makes a reply all but 
hopeless. But if by salvation is meant, a trusting in 
Christ in order to likeness to Christ, in order to that 
holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, 
the reply is that the parasite's hope is absolutely 
vain. So far from ministering to growth, parasitism 
ministers to decay. So far from ministering to 
holiness, that is to wholeness, parasitism ministers 
to exactly the opposite. One by one the spiritual 
faculties droop and die, one by one from lack of 
exercise the muscles of the soul grow weak and 
flaccid, one by one the moral activities cease. So 
from him that hath not, is taken away that which 
he hath, and after a few years of parasitism there 
is nothing left to save. 

If our meaning up to this point has been suffi- 
ciently obscure to make the objection now possible 

21 



322 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

that this protest against Parasitism is opposed to the 
doctrines of Free Grace, we cannot hope in a closing 
sentence to free the argument from a suspicion so 
ill-judged. The adjustment between Faith and 
Works does not fall within our province now. Sal- 
vation truly is the free gift of God, but he who really 
knows how much this means knows — and just be- 
cause it means so much — how much of consequent 
action it involves. With the central doctrines of 
grace the whole scientific argument is in too wonder- 
ful harmony to be found wanting here. The natural 
life, not less than the eternal, is the gift of God. But 
life in either case is the beginning of growth and not 
the end of grace. To pause where we should begin, 
to retrograde where we should advance, to seek a 
mechanical security that we may cover inertia and 
find a wholesale salvation in which there is no per- 
sonal sanctification — this is Parasitism. 



PAEASITISM. 



" And so Hive, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare ; happy that I can 
JBe crossed and thwarted as a man, 
JVbt left in God's contempt apart, 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at hearty 
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. 
***** 

Thank God, no paradise stands barred 
To entry, and I find it hard 
To be a Christian, as I said? 



PAEASITISM. 

" Work out your own salvation." — Paul. 

"Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. 
Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal 
fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name ! " — Carlyle. 

From a study of the habits and organization of 
the family of Hermit-crabs we have already gained 
some insight into the nature and effects of parasitism. 
But the Hermit-crab, be it remembered, is in no 
real sense a parasite. And before we can apply the 
general principle further we must address ourselves 
briefly to the examination of a true case of para- 
sitism. 

We have not far to seek. Within the body of 
the Hermit-crab a minute organism may frequently 
be discovered resembling, when magnified, a minia- 
ture kidney-bean. A bunch of root-like processes 
hangs from one side, and the extremities of these 
are seen to ramify in delicate films through the 
living tissues of the crab. This simple organism is 
known to the naturalist as a Sacculina ; and though 
a full grown animal, it consists of no more parts 
than those just named. 'Not a trace of struc- 
ture is to be detected within this rude and all but 

325 



326 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

inanimate frame ; it possesses neither legs, nor eyes, 
nor mouth, nor throat, nor stomach, nor any other 
organs, external or internal. This Sacculina is a 
typical parasite. By means of its twining and 
theftuous roots it imbibes automatically its nourish- 
ment ready-prepared from the body of the crab. 
It boards indeed entirely at the expense of its host, 
who supplies it liberally with food and shelter and 
everything else it wants. So far as the result to itself 
is concerned this arrangement may seem at first 
sight satisfactory enough ; but when we inquire into 
the life history of this small creature we unearth 
a career of degeneracy all but unparalleled in 
nature. 

The most certain clue to what nature meant any 
animal to become is to be learned from its embry- 
ology. Let us, therefore, examine for a moment the 
earliest positive stage in the development of the 
Sacculina. When the embryo first makes its ap- 
pearance it bears not the remotest resemblance to 
the adult animal. A different name even is given 
to it by the biologist, who knows it at this period 
as a Nauplius. This minute organism has an oval 
body, supplied with six well-jointed feet by means 
of which it paddles briskly through the water. For 
a time it leads an active and independent life, in- 
dustriously securing its own food and escaping 
enemies by its own gallantry. But soon a change 
takes place. The hereditary taint of parasitism is 
in its blood, and it proceeds to adapt itself to the 
pauper habits of its race, The tiny body first 



V 

PARASITISM. 327 

doubles in upon itself, and from the two front limbs 
elongated filaments protrude. Its four bind limbs 
entirely disappear, and twelve short-forked swimming 
organs temporarily take their place. Thus strangely 
metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in search of 
a suitable host, and in an evil hour, by that fate 
which is always ready to accommodate the trans- 
gressor, is thrown into the company of the Hermit- 
crab. With its two filamentary processes — which 
afterwards develop into the root-like organs — it 
penetrates the body ; the sac-like form is gradually 
assumed ; the whole of the swimming feet drop off, 
— they will never be needed again, — and the animal 
settles down for the rest of its life as a parasite. 

One reason which makes a zoologist certain that 
the Sacculina is a degenerate type is, that in almost 
all other instances of animals which begin life in 
the Nauplius-form — and there are several — the 
JSTauplius develops through higher and higher stages, 
and arrives finally at the high perfection displayed 
by the shrimp, lobster, crab, and other crustaceans. 
But instead of rising to its opportunities, the sac- 
culine Nauplius having reached a certain point 
turned back. It shrunk from the struggle for life, 
and beginning probably by seeking shelter from its 
host went on to demand its food; and so falling 
from bad to worse, became in time an entire de- 
pendent. 

In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold crime. 
It was first a disregard of evolution, and second, 
which is practically the same thing, an evasion of 



328 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature 
was therefore necessary. It could not help punishing 
the Sacculina for violated law, and the punishment, 
according to the strange and noteworthy way in 
which Nature usually punishes, was meted out by 
natural processes, carried on within its own organiza- 
tion. Its punishment was simply that it was a 
Sacculina — that it was a Sacculina when it might 
have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a free 
and independent organism high in structure, original 
in action, vital with ener°T, it deteriorated into a 
torpid and all but amorphous sac confined to per- 
petual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. 
" Any new set of conditions," sa}^s Kay Lankester, 
" occurring to an animal which render its food and 
safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule 
to degeneration ; just as an active healthy man 
sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenlv 
possessed of a fortune ; or as Rome degenerated 
when possessed of the riches of the ancient world. 
The habit of parasitism clearly acts upon animal 
organization in this way. Let the parasitic life once 
be secured, and away go legs, jaw^s, eyes, and ears ; 
the active, highly-gifted crab, insect, or annelid may 
become a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and 
laying eggs." * 

There could be no more impressive illustration 

than this of what with entire appropriateness one 

might call "the physiology of backsliding." We 

fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degenera. 

* " Degeneration," by E. Ray Lankester, p. 33. 



PARASITISM. 329 

tion or detect the terrible nature of the consequences 
only because they evade the eye of sense. But 
could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, 
or study the soul of the backslider on principles of 
comparative anatomy > we should have a revelation 
of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere sin 
of carelessness as to growth and work, which must 
revolutionize our ideas of practical religion. There 
is no room for the doubt even that what goes on in 
the body does not with equal certainty take place 
in the spirit under the corresponding conditions. 

The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal 
and vague, some unknown quantity which may be 
measured out to us disproportionately, or which 
perchance, since God is good, we may altogether 
evade. The consequences are already marked within 
the structure of the soul. So to speak, they are 
physiological. ■ The thing affected by our indifference 
or by our indulgence is not the book of final judg- 
ment but the present fabric of the soul. The punish- 
ment of degeneration is simply degeneration — the 
loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy 
of the spiritual nature. It is well known that the 
recovery of the backslider is one of the hardest 
problems in spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old 
organ seems more difficult and hopeless than to 
develop a new one ; and the backslider's terrible 
lot is to have to retrace with enfeebled feet each step 
of the way along Avhich he strayed ; to make up 
inch by inch the lee- way he has lost, carrying with 
him a dead- weight of acquired reluctance, and scarce 



330 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

knowing whether to be stimulated or discouraged 
by the oppressive memory of the previous fall. 

We are not, however, to discuss at present the 
physiology of backsliding. !N >r need we point out 
at greater length that parasitism is always and 
indissolubly accompanied by degeneration. We 
wish rather to examine one or two leading tendencies 
of the modern religious life which directly or in- 
directly induce the parasitic habit and bring upon 
thousands of unsuspecting victims such secret and 
appalling penalties as have been named. 

Two main causes are known to the biologist as 
tending to induce the parasitic habit. These are, 
first, the temptation to secure safety without the 
vital exercise of faculties, and, second, the dispo- 
sition to find food without earning it. The first, 
which we have formally considered, is probably the 
preliminary stage in most cases. The animal, seek- 
ing shelter, finds unexpectedly that it can also 
thereby gain a certain measure of food. Compelled 
in the first instance, perhaps by stress of circum- 
stances, to rob its host of a meal or perish, it gradually 
acquires the habit of drawing all its supplies from 
the same source, and thus becomes in time a con- 
firmed parasite. Whatever be its origin, however, 
it is certain that the main evil of parasitism is con- 
nected with the further question of food. Mere 
safety with Mature is a secondary, though by no 
means an in significant, consideration. And while 
the organism forfeits a part of its organization by 
any method of evading enemies which demands no 



JPAftASITISM. S31 

personal effort, the most entire degeneration of the 
whole system follows the neglect or abuse of the 
functions of nutrition. 

The direction in which we have to seek the wider 
application of the subject will now appear. We 
have to look into those cases in the moral and 
spiritual sphere in which the functions of nutrition 
are either neglected or abused. To sustain life, 
physical, mental, moral, or spiritual, some sort of 
food is essential. To secure an adequate supply each 
organism also is provided with special and appro- 
priate faculties. But the final gain to the organism 
does not depend so much on the actual amount of 
food procured as on the exercise required to obtain 
it. In one sense the exercise is only a means to an 
end, namely, the finding food ; but in another and 
equally real sense, the exercise is the end, the food 
the means to attain that. Neither is of permanent 
use without the other, but the correlation between 
them is so intimate that it were idle to say that one 
is more necessary than the other. Without food 
exercise is impossible, but without exercise food is 
useless. 

Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is in 
order to exercise — in order especially to that further 
progress and maturity which only ceaseless activity 
can promote. Now food too easily acquired means 
food without that accompaniment of discipline which 
is infinitely more valuable than the food itself. It 
means the possibility of a life which is a mere ex- 
istence. It leaves the organism in statu quo, unde- 



332 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

veloped, immature, low in the scale of organization 
and with a growing tendency to pass from the state 
of equilibrium to that of increasing degeneration. 
What an organism is depends upon what it does ; 
its activities make it. And if the stimulus to the 
exercise of all the innumerable faculties concerned 
in nutrition be withdrawn by the conditions and 
circumstances of life becoming, or being made to 
become, too easy, there is first an arrest of develop- 
ment, and finally a loss of the parts themselves. If, 
in short, an organism does nothing, in that relation 
it is nothing. 

"We may, therefore, formulate the general principle 
thus : Any principle which secures food to the in- 
dividual without the expenditure of work is injurious, 
and accompanied by the degeneration and loss of parts. 

The social and political analogies of this law, 
which have been casually referred to already, are 
sufficiently familiar to render any further develop- 
ment in these directions superfluous. After the 
eloquent preaching of the Gospel of Work by Thomas 
Carlyle, this century at least can never plead that 
one of the most important moral bearings of the 
subject has not been duly impressed upon it. All 
that can be said of idleness generally might be fitly 
urged in support of this great practical truth. All 
nations which have prematurely passed away, buried 
in graves dug by their own effeminacy ; all those in- 
dividuals who have secured a hasty wealth by the 
chances of speculation ; all children of fortune ; all 
victims of inheritance ; all social sponges 5 all satel- 



PARASITISM. 333 

lites of the court ; all beggars of the market-place — 
all these are living and unlying witnesses to the 
unalterable retributions of the law of parasitism. 
But it is when we come to study the working of the 
principle in the religious sphere that we discover the 
full extent of the ravages which the parasitic habit 
can make on the souls of men. We can only hope 
to indicate here one or two of the things in modern 
Christianity which minister most subtly and widely 
to this as yet all but unnamed sin. 

We begin in what may seem a somewhat unlooked- 
for quarter. One of the things in the religious world 
which tends most strongly to induce the parasitic 
habit is Going to Church. Church-going itself every 
Christian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to 
the ripe development of the spiritual life. Public 
worship has a place in the national religious life so 
firmly established that nothing is ever likely to shake 
its influence. So supreme indeed, is the ecclesias- 
tical system in all Christian countries that with 
thousands the religion of the Church and the religion 
of the individual are one. But just because of its 
high and unique place in religious regard, does it 
become men from time to time to inquire how far 
the Church is really ministering to the spiritual 
health of the immense religious community which 
looks to it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us 
here reluctantly to expose some secret abuses of this 
venerable system, let it be well understood that these 
are abuses, and not that the sacred institution itself 
is being violated by the attack of an impious hand. 



334 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

The danger of church-going largely depends on 
the form of worship, but it may be affirmed that 
even the most perfect Church affords to all wor- 
shippers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. 
It consists essentially in the deputy-work or deputy- 
worship inseparable from church or chapel ministra- 
tions. One man is set apart to prepare a certain 
amount of spiritual truth for the rest. He, if he is 
a true man, gets all the benefits of original work. 
He finds the truth, digests it, is nourished and en- 
riched by it before he offers it to his flock. To a 
large extent it will nourish and enrich in turn a 
number of his hearers. But still'thev will lack some- 
thing. The faculty of selecting truth at first hand 
and appropriating it for one's self is a lawful posses- 
sion to every Christian. Rightly exercised it con- 
veys to him truth in its freshest form : it offers him 
the opportunity of verif3 T ing doctrines for himself ; 
it makes religion personal ; it deepens and intensi- 
fies the only convictions that are worth deepening, 
those, namely, w T hich are honest ; and it supplies 
the mind with a basis of certainty in religion. But 
if all one's truth is derived by imbibition from the 
Church, the faculties for receiving truth are not only 
undeveloped but one's whole view of truth becomes 
distorted. He who abandons the personal search 
for truth under whatever pretext, abandons truth. 
The very word truth, by becoming the limited pos- 
sessions of a guild, ceases to have any meaning ; and 
faith, which can only be founded on truth, gives 
way to credulity, resting on mere opinion. 



PARASITISM. 335 

In those churches especially where all parts of the 
worship are subordinated to the sermon, this species 
of parasitism is peculiarly encouraged. What is 
meant to be a stimulus to thought becomes the sub- 
stitute for it. The hearer never really learns, he only 
listens. And while truth and knowledge seem to 
increase, life and character are left in arrear. Such 
truth, of course, and such knowledge, are a mere 
seeming. Having cost nothing, they come to 
nothing. The organism acquires a growing immo- 
bility, and finally exists in a state of entire intel- 
lectual helplessness and inertia. So the parasitic 
Church-member, the literal " adherent," comes not 
merely to live only within the circle of ideas of his 
minister, but to be content that his minister has 
these ideas — like the literary parasite who fancies he 
knows everything because he has a good library. 

Where the worship, again, is largely liturgical the 
danger assumes an even more serious form, and it 
acts in some such way as this. Every sincere man 
who sets out in the Christian race begins by at- 
tempting to exercise the spiritual faculties for him- 
self. The young life throbs in his veins, and he 
sets himself to the further progress w T ith earnest 
purpose and resolute will. For a time he bids fair 
to attain a high and original development. But 
the temptation to relax the always difficult effort 
at spirituality is greater than he knows. The 
" carnal mind " itself is " enmity against God," and 
the antipathy, or the deadlier apathy within, is 
unexpectedly encouraged from that very outside 



336 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

source from which he anticipates the greatest help. 
Connecting himself with a Church he is no less 
interested than surprised to find how rich is the 
provision there for every part of his spiritual nature. 
Each service satisfies or surfeits. Twice, or even 
three times a week, this feast is spread for him. 
The thoughts are deeper than his own, the faith 
keener, the worship loftier, the whole ritual more 
reverent and splendid. What more natural than 
that he should gradually exchange his personal 
religion for that of the congregation ? "What more 
likely than that a public religion should by in- 
sensible stages supplant his individual faith ? What 
more simple than to content himself with the warmth 
of another's soul ? What more tempting than to 
give up private prayer for the easier worship of the 
liturgy or of the church ? What, in short, more 
natural than for the independent, free-moving, grow- 
ing Sacculina to degenerate into the listless, useless, 
pampered parasite of the pew? The very means 
he takes to nurse his personal religion often come 
- in time to wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, 
or even enthusiastically, on the lips of eloquence, 
his senses now stirred by ceremony, now soothed 
by music, the parasite of the pew enjoys his weekly 
worship — his character untouched, his will unbraced, 
his crude soul unquickened and unimproved. Thus, 
instead of ministering to the growth of individual 
members, and very often just in proportion to the 
superior excellence of the provision made for them 
by another, does this gigantic system of deputy- 



PARASITISM. 337 

nutrition tend to destroy development and arrest 
the genuine culture of the soul. Our churches over- 
flow with members who are mere consumers. Their 
interest in religion is purely parasitic. Their only 
spiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibi- 
tion, the clergyman being the faithful Hermit-crab 
who is to be depended on every Sunday for at 
least a week's supply. 

A physiologist would describe the organism re- 
sulting from such a process as a case of " arrested 
development." Instead of having learned to pray, 
the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with / 
being prayed for. His transactions with the Eternal 
are effected by commission. His work for Christ 
is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a 
prolonged indulgence in the bounties of the Church ; 
and surely — in some cases at least the crowning 
irony — he sends for the minister when he lies down ! 
to die. 

Other signs and consequences of this species of 
parasitism soon become very apparent. The first 
symptom is idleness. When a Church is off its 
true diet it is off its true work. Hence one ex- 
planation of the hundreds of large and influential 
congregations ministered to from week to week by 
men of eminent learning and earnestness, which 
yet do little or nothing in the line of these special 
activities for which all churches exist. An out- 
standing man at the head of a huge, useless and 
torpid congregation is always a puzzle. But is the 
reason not this, that the congregation gets too good 

22 



338 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

food too cheap? Providence has mercifully de- 
livered the Church from too many great men in 
her pulpits, but there are enough in every country- 
side to play the host disastrously to a large circle 
of otherwise able-bodied Christian people, who 
thrown on their own resources, might fatten them- 
selves and help others. There are compensations 
to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where 
the fare is indifferent those who are really hungry 
will exert themselves to procure their own supply. 

That the Church has indispensable functions to 
discharge to the individual is not denied : but taking 
into consideration the universal tendency to para- 
sitism in the human soul it is a grave question 
whether in some cases it does not really effect 
more harm than good. A dead church certainly, 
a church having no reaction on the community, 
a church without propagative power in the world, 
cannot be other than a calamity to all within its 
borders. Such a church is an institution, first for 
making, then for screening parasites ; and instead 
of representing to the world the Kingdom of God 
on earth, it is despised alike by godly and by 
godless men as the refuge for fear and formalism 
and the nursery of superstition. 

And this suggests a second and not less practical 
evil of a parasitic piety — that it presents to the world 
a false conception of the religion of Christ. One 
notices with a frequency which may well excite alarm 
that the children of church-going parents often break 
away as they grow in intelligence, not only from 



PARASITISM. 339 

church-connection but from the whole system of 
family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due 
to natural perversity, but in others it certainly arises 
from the hollowness of the outward forms which 
pass current in society and at home for vital Chris- 
tianity. These spurious forms, fortunately or un- 
fortunately, soon betray themselves. How little 
there is in them becomes gradually apparent. And 
rather than indulge in a sham the budding sceptic, 
as the first step, parts with the form and in nine 
cases out of ten concerns himself no further to find 
a substitute. Quite deliberately, quite honestly, 
sometimes with real regret and even at personal 
sacrifice he takes up his position, and to his parent's 
sorrow and his church's dishonor forsakes forever 
the faith and religion of his fathers. Who will deny 
that this is a true account of the natural history of 
much modern scepticism ? A formal religion can 
never hold its own in the nineteenth century. It is 
better that it should not. We must either be real 
or cease to be. We must either give up our Para- 
sitism or our sons. 

Any one who will take the trouble to investigate 
a number of cases, where whole families of outwardly 
godly parents have gone astray, will probably find 
that the household religion had either some palpable 
defect, or belonged essentially to the parasitic order. 
The popular belief that the sons of clergymen turn 
out worse than those of the laity is, of course, with- 
out foundation ; but it may also probably be verified 
that in the instances where clergy men's sons nolo- 



340 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

riously discredit their father's ministry, that ministry 
in a majority of cases, will be found to be profes- 
sional and theological rather than human and spirit- 
ual. Sequences in the moral and spiritual world 
follow more closelv than we yet discern the great 
law of Heredity. The Parasite begets the Parasite 
— only in the second generation the offspring are 
sometimes sufficiently wise to make the discovery, 
and honest enough to proclaim it. 

We now pass on to the consideration of another 
form of Parasitism which, though closely related to 
that just discussed, is of sufficient importance to 
justify a separate reference. Appealing to a some- 
what smaller circle, but affecting it not less dis- 
astrously, is the Parasitism induced by certain abuses 
of Systems of Theology. 

In its own place, of course, Theology is no more 
to be dispensed with than the Church. In every 
perfect religious system three great departments 
must always be represented — criticism, dogmatism, 
and evangelism. "Without the first there is no 
guarantee of truth, without the second no defence 
of truth, and without the third no propagation of 
truth. But when these departments become mixed 
up, when their separate functions are forgotten, 
when one is made to do duty for another, or where 
either is developed by the church or the individual 
at the expense of the rest, the result is fatal. The 
particular abuse, however, of which we have now 
to speak, concerns the tendency in orthodox com- 
munities, first to exalt orthodoxy above all other 



PARASITISM. 341 

elements in religion, and secondly to make the pos- 
session of sound beliefs equivalent to the possession 
of truth. 

Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a constant 
practice is less in vogue than in a former age, but 
there are still large numbers whose only contact with 
religion is through theological forms. The method is 
supported by a plausible defence. What is doctrine 
but a compressed form of truth, systematized by able 
and pious men, and sanctioned by the imprimatur of 
the Church ? If the greatest minds of the Church's 
past, having exercised themselves profoundly upon 
the problems of religion, formulated as with one 
voice a system of doctrine, why should the humble 
inquirer not gratefully accept it ? Why go over the 
ground again ? Why with his dim light should he 
betake himself afresh to Bible study and with so 
great a body of divinity already compiled, presume 
himself to be still a seeker after truth ? Does not 
Theology give him Bible truth in reliable, convenient 
and moreover, in logical propositions ? There it lies 
extended to the last detail in the tomes of the 
Fathers, or abridged in a hundred modern compendia, 
ready-made to his hand, all cut and dry, guaranteed 
sound and wholesome, why not use it ? 

Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because it 
is readv-made. Just because it lies therein reliable, 
convenient and logical propositions. The moment 
you appropriate truth in such a shape you appro- 
priate a form. You cannot cut and dry truth. You 
cannot accept truth ready-made without it ceasing to 



If 



342 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

nourish the soul as truth. You cannot live on the- 
ological forms without becoming a Parasite and 
ceasing to be a man. 

There is no worse enemy to a living Church than 
a propositional theology, with the latter controlling 
the former by traditional authority. For one does 
not then receive the truth for himself, he accepts it 
bodily. He begins the Christian life set up by his 
Church with a stock in-trade which has cost him 
nothing, and which, though it may serve him all his 
life, is just exactly worth as much as his belief in his 
Church. This possession of truth, moreover, thus 
lightly won, is given to him as infallible. It is a 
system. There is nothing to add to it. At his peril 
let him question or take from it. To start a convert 
in life with such a principle is unspeakably degrading. 
All through life instead of working towards truth 
i he must work from it. An infallible standard is 
a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility 
always paralyzes. It gives rest; but it is the rest 
of stagnation. Men perform one great act of faith 
at the beginning of their life, then have done with it 
forever. All moral, intellectual and spiritual effort 
is over ; and a cheap theology ends in a cheap life. 

The same thing that makes men take refuge in 
the Church of Rome makes them take refuge in a 
set of dogmas. Infallibility meets the deepest 
desire of man, but meets it in the most fatal form. 
Men deal with the hunger after truth in two ways, 
First by Unbelief — which crushes it by blind force; 
or, secondly, by resorting to some external source 



PARASITISM. 343 

credited with Infallibility — which lulls it to sleep 
by blind faith. The effect of a doctrinal theology 
is the effect of Infallibility. And the wholesale 
belief in such a system, however accurate it may be 
— grant even that it were infallible — is not Faith 
though it always gets that name. It is mere Cre- 
dulitjr. It is a complacent and idle rest upon au- 
thority, not a hard-earned, self-obtained, personal 
possession. The moral responsibility here, besides, 
is reduced to nothing. Those who framed the 
Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confession 
are responsible. And anything which destroys re- 
sponsibility, or transfers it, cannot be other than 
injurious in its moral tendency and useless in it- 
self. 

It may be objected perhaps that this statement 
of the paralysis spiritual and mental induced by 
Infallibility applies also to the Bible. The answer 
is that though the Bible is infallible, the Infallibility 
is not in such a form as to become a temptation. 
There is the widest possible difference between the 
form of truth in the Bible and the form in the- 
ology. 

In theology truth is propositional — tied up in 
neat parcels, systematized, and arranged in logical 
order. The Trinity is an intricate doctrinal prob- 
lem. The Supreme Being is discussed in terms of 
philosophy. The Atonement is a formula winch is 
to be demonstrated like a proposition in Euclid. 
And Justification is to be worked out as a question 
of jurisprudence. There is no necessary connection 



344 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

between these doctrines and the life of him who 
holds them. Thev make him othodox, not neces- 
sarily righteous. They satisfy the intellect but need 
not touch the heart. It does not, in short, take a 
religious man to be a theologian. It simply takes 
a man with fair reasoning powers. This man hap- 
pens to apply these powers to theological subjects 
— but in no other sense than he might apply them 
to astronomy or physics. But truth in the Bible 
is a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so diffused 
that no one can put himself off with the form. It 
is reached not by thinking, but by doing. It is 
seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be 
bolted whole, but must be slowly absorbed into the 
system. Its vagueness to the mere intellect, its 
refusal to be packed into portable phrases, its satis- 
fying unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its find- 
ing of us, its mystical hold of us, these are the 
tokens of its infinity. 

Nature never provides for man's wants in any 
direction, bodily, mental, or spiritual, in such a 
form as that he can simply accept her gifts auto- 
matically. Sbe puts all the mechanical powers at 
his disposal — but he must make his lever. She 
gives him corn but he must grind it. She elabo- 
rates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, 
all the products of Nature are perfect, but he has 
everything to do to them before he can use them. 
So with truth; it is perfect, infallible. But he can- 
not use it as it stands. He must work, think 
separate, dissolve, absorb, digest ; and most of these 



PARASITISM. 345 

he must do for himself and within himself. If it be 
replied that this is exactly what theology does, we 
answer it is exactly what it does not. It simply 
does what the greengrocer does when he arranges 
his apples and plums in his shop-window. He may 
tell me a magnum bonum from a Yictoria, or a 
Baldwin from a Newtown Pippin. But he does not 
help me to eat it. His information is useful, and 
for scientific horticulture essential. Should a scepti- 
cal pomologist deny that there was such a thing as 
a Baldwin, or mistake it for a Newtown Pippin, we 
should be glad to refer to him ; but if he were 
hungry, and an orchard were handy, we should not 
trouble him. Truth in the Bible is an orchard 
rather than a museum. Dogmatism will be very 
valuable to us when scientific necessity makes us 
go to the museum. Criticism will be very useful 
in seeing that only fruit-bearers grow in the orchard. 
But truth in the doctrinal form is not natural, 
proper, assimilable food for the soul of man. 

Is this a plea then for doubt? Yes, for that 
philosophic doubt which is the evidence of a faculty 
doing its own w^ork. It is more necessary for us 
to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox 
is what we wish to be, but we can only truly reach 
it by being honest, by being original, by seeing 
with our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. 
" An idle life," says Goethe, " is death anticipated." 
Better far be burned at the stake of Public Opinion 
than die the living death of Parasitism. Better an 
aberrant theology than a suppressed organization. 



346 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

Better a little faith dearly won, better launched 
alone on the infinite bewilderment of Truth, than 
perish on the splendid plenty of the richest creeds. 
Such Doubt is no self-willed presumption. Nor, 
truly exercised, will it prove itself, as much doubt 
does, the synonym for sorrow. It aims at a life- 
long learning, prepared for any sacrifice of will yet 
for none of independence ; at that high progressive 
education which yields rest in work and work in 
rest, and the development of immortal faculties in 
both ; at that deeper faith which believes in the 
vastness and variety of the revelations of God, and 
their accessibility to all obedient hearts. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



« I judge of the order of the world, although I know 
not its end, because to judge of this order I only need 
mutually to compare the parts, to study their functions, 
their relations, and to remark their concert. I know not 
why the universe exists, but I do not desist from seeing 
how it is rnodijied ; I do not cease to see the intimate 
agreement by which the beings that compose it render a 
mutual help. lam like a man tcho should see for the 
first time an open watch, who should not cease to admire 
the icorkmanship of it, although he knows not the use of 
the machine, and had never seen dials. I do not know, 
he would say, what all this is for, but I see that each 
piece is made for the others ; I admire the worker hi the 
detail of his work, and I am very sure that all these 
wheelworks only go thus in concert for a common end 
which 1 cannot perceive" 

Rousseau. 



CLASSIFICATION. 

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit." — Christ. 

" In early attempts to arrange organic beings in some 
systematic manner, we see at first a guidance by conspicu- 
ous and simple characters, and a tendency towards arrange- 
ment in linear order. In successively later attempts, we see 
more regard paid to combinations of character which are 
essential but often inconspicuous ; and a gradual abandon- 
ment of a linear arrangement." — Herbert Spencer. 

On one of the shelves in a certain museum lie two 
small boxes filled with earth. A low mountain in 
Arran has furnished the first ; the contents of the 
second came from the Island of Barbadoes. When 
examined with a pocket lens, the Arran earth is 
found to be full of small objects, clear as crystal, 
fashioned by some mysterious geometry into forms 
of exquisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a 
natural glass ; and the prevailing shape is a six- 
sided prism capped at either end by little pyramids 
modelled with consummate grace. 

When the second specimen is examined, the 

revelation is, if possible, more surprising. Here, 

also, is a vast assemblage of small glassy or por- 

eelaneous objects built up into curious forms. The 

349 



350 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

material, chemically, remains the same, but the 
angles of pyramid and prism have given place to 
curved lines, so that the contour is entirely different. 
The appearance is that of a vast collection of mi- 
croscopic urns, goblets, and vases, each richly orna- 
mented with small sculptured discs or perforations 
which are disposed over the pure white surface in 
regular belts and rows. Each tiny urn is chiselled 
into the most faultless proportion, and the whole 
presents a vision of magic beauty. 

Judged by the standard of their loveliness there 
is little to choose between these two sets of objects. 
Yet there is one cardinal difference between them. 
They belong to different worlds. The last belong 
to the living world, the former to the dead. The 
first are crystals, the last are shells. 

No power on earth can make these little urns of 
the Polycystinm except Life. We can melt them 
down in the laboratory, but no ingenuity of chem- 
istry can reproduce their sculptured forms. We are 
sure that Life has formed them, however, for tiny 
creatures allied to those which made the Barbadoes' 
earth are living still, fashioning their fairy palaces 
of flint in the same mysterious way. On the other 
hand, chemistry has no difficulty in making these 
crystals. We can melt down this Arran earth and 
reproduce the p} 7 ramids and prisms in endless num- 
bers. Nay, if we do melt it down, w T e cannot help 
reproducing the pyramid and the prism. There is 
a six-sidedness, as it were, in the very nature of this 
substance which will infallibly manifest itself if the 



CLASSIFICATION. 351 

crystallizing substance only be allowed fair play. 
This six-sided tendency is its Law of Crystallization 
— a law of its nature which it cannot resist. But 
in the crystal there is nothing at all corresponding 
to Life. There is simply an inherent force which 
can be called into action at any moment, and which 
cannot be separated from the particles in which it 
resides. The crystal may be ground to pieces, but 
this force remains intact. And even after being re- 
duced to powder, and running the gauntlet of every 
process in the chemical laboratory, the moment the 
substance is left to itself under possible conditions 
it will proceed to recrystallize anew. But if the 
Polycystine urn be broken, no inorganic agency can 
build it up again. So far as any inherent urn- 
building power, analogous to the crystalline force, is 
concerned, it might lie there in a shapeless mass for- 
ever. That which modelled it at first is gone from 
it. It was Yital ; while the force which built the 
crystal was only Molecular. 

From an artistic point of view this distinction 
is of small importance. ^Esthetically, the Law of 
Crystallization is probably as useful in ministering 
to natural beauty as Vitality. What are more 
beautiful than the crystals of a snowflake? Or 
what frond of fern or feather of bird can vie with 
the tracery of the frost upon a window-pane ? Can 
it be said that the lichen is more lovely than the 
striated crystals of the granite on which it grows, 
or the moss on the mountain side more satisfying 
than the hidden amethyst and cairngorm in the 



352 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

rock beneath ? Or is the botanist more astonished 
when his microscope reveals the architecture of spiral 
tissue in the stem of a plant, or the mineralogist who 
beholds for the first time the chaos of beauty in the 
sliced specimen of some common stone ? So far as 
beauty goes the organic world and the inorganic are 
one. 

To the man of science, however, this identity of 
beauty signifies nothing. His concern in the first 
instance, is not with the forms but with the natures 
of things. It is no valid answer to him, when he 
asks the difference between the moss and the cairn- 
gorm, the frost-work and the fern, to be assured that 
both are beautiful. For no fundamental distinction 
in Science depends upon beauty. He wants an 
answer in terms of chemistry, are they organic or 
inorganic ? or in terms of biology, are they living 
or dead ? But when he is told that the one is living 
and the other dead, he is in possession of a char- 
acteristic and fundamental scientific distinction. 
From this point of view, however much they may 
possess in common of material substance and beauty, 
they are separated from one another by a wide and 
unbridged gulf. The classification of these forms, 
therefore, depends upon the standpoint, and we 
should pronounce them like or unlike, related or un- 
related, according as we judged them from the point 
of view of Art or Science. 

The drift of these introductory paragraphs must 
already be apparent. We propose to inquire whether 
among men, clothed apparently with a common 



CLASSIFICATION. 353 

beauty of character, there may not yet be distinctions 
as radical as between the crystal and the shell ; and, 
further, whether the current classification of men, 
based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactory 
either from the standpoint of Science or of Christian- 
ity. Here, for example, are two characters, pure and 
elevated, adorned with conspicuous virtues, stirred 
by lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneous 
admiration from all who look on them — may not this 
similarity of outward form be accompanied by a 
total dissimilarity of inward nature ? Is the exter- 
nal appearance the truest criterion of the ultimate 
nature ? Or, as in the crystal and the shell, may there 
not exist distinctions more profound and basal ? The 
distinctions drawn between men, in short, are com- 
monly based on the outward appearance of goodness \ 
or badness, on the ground of moral beauty or moral 
deformity — is this classification scientific? Or is 
there a deeper distinction between the Christian and 
the not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between 
the organic and the inorganic ? 

There can be little doubt, to begin with, that with 
the great majority of people religion is regarded as 
essentially one with morality. Whole schools of 
philosophy have treated the Christian Keligion as a 
question of beauty, and discussed its place among 
other systems of ethic. Even those systems of the- 
ology which profess to draw a deeper distinction have 
rarely succeeded in establishing it upon any valid 
basis, or seem even to have made that distinction 
perceptible to others. So little, indeed, has the 
2 3 



354: NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

rationale of the science of religion been understood 
that there is still no more unsatisfactory province 
in theology than where morality and religion are 
contrasted, and the adjustment attempted between 
moral philosophy and what are known as the doc- 
trines of grace. 

Examples of this confusion are so numerous that 
if one were to proceed to proof he would have to 
cite almost the entire European philosophy of the 
last three hundred years. From Spinoza down- 
ward through the whole naturalistic school, Moral 
Beauty is persistently regarded as synonymous with 
religion and the spiritual life. The most earnest 
thinking of the present day is steeped in the same 
confusion. "We have even the remarkable spectacle 
presented to us just now of a sublime Morality- 
Religion divorced from Christianity altogether, and 
wedded to the baldest form of materialism. It is 
claimed, moreover, that the moral scheme of this 
high atheism is loftier and more perfect than that 
of Christianity, and men are asked to take their 
choice as if the morality w r ere everything, the 
Christianity or the atheism which nourished it being 
neither here nor there. Others, again, studying this 
moral beauty carefully, have detected a something 
in its Christian forms which has compelled them to 
declare that a distinction certainly exists. But in 
scarcely a single instance is the gravity of the dis- 
tinction more than dimly apprehended. Few con- 
ceive of it as other than a difference of degree, or 
oould give a more definite account of it than Mr. 



CLASSIFICATION. 355 

Matthew Arnold's "Religion is Morality touched by 
Emotion " — an utterance significant mainly as the 
testimony of an acute mind that a distinction of 
some kind does exist. In a recent Symposium 
where the question as to " The influence upon 
Morality of a decline in Religious Belief," was dis- 
cussed at length by writers of whom this century 
is justly proud, there appears scarcely so much as 
a recognition of the fathomless chasm separating 
the leading terms of debate. 

If beauty is the criterion of religion, this view 
of the relation of religion to morality is justified. 
But what if there be the same difference in the 
beauty of two separate characters that there is be- 
tween the mineral and the shell ? What if there 
be a moral beauty and a spiritual beauty ? What 
answer shall we get if we demand a more scientific 
distinction between characters than that based on 
mere outward form? It is not enough from the 
standpoint of biological religion to say of two 
characters that both are beautiful. For, again, no 
fundamental distinction in Science depends upon 
beauty. We ask an answer in terms of biology, 
are they flesh or spirit ; are they living or dead ? 

If this is really a scientific question, if it is a 
question not of moral philosophy only, but of 
biology, we are compelled to repudiate beauty as 
the criterion of spirituality. It is not, of course, 
meant by this that spirituality is not morally 
beautiful. Spirituality must be morally very beau- 
tiful — so much so that popularly one is justified in 



356 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

judging of religion by its beauty. ]S^or is it meant 
that morality is not a criterion. All that is con- 
tended for is that, from the scientific standpoint, it 
is not the criterion. We can judge of the crystal and 
the shell from many other standpoints besides 
those named, each classification having an impor- 
tance in its own sphere. Thus we might class them 
according to their size and weight, their percentage 
of silica, their use in the arts, or their commercial 
value. Each science or art is entitled, to regard, 
them from its own point of view ; and when the 
biologist announces his classification he does not 
interfere with those based on other grounds. Onlv, 

C ■, 7 

having chosen his standpoint, he is bound to frame 
his classification in terms of it. 

It may be well to state emphatically, that in 
proposing a new classification — or rather, in reviving 
the primitive one — in the spiritual sphere we leave 
untouched, as of supreme value in its own province, 
the test of morality. Morality is certainly a test 
of religion — for most practical purposes the very 
best test. And so far from tending to depreciate 
morality, the bringing into prominence of the true 
basis is entirely in its interests — in the interests 
of a moral beauty, indeed, infinitely surpassing the 
highest attainable perfection on merely natural 
lines. 

The warrant for seeking a further classification 
is twofold. It is a principle in science that classifi- 
cation should rest on the most basal characteristics. 
To determine what these are may not always be 



CLASSIFICATION. 357 

easy, but it is at least evident that a classification 
framed on the ultimate nature of organisms must 
be more distinctive than one based on external 
characters. Before the principles of classification 
were understood, organisms were invariably arranged 
according to some merely external resemblance. 
Thus plants were classed according to size as Herbs, 
Shrubs, and Trees ; and animals according to their 
appearance as Birds, Beasts, and Fishes. The Bat 
upon this principle was a bird, the Whale a fish ; 
and so thoroughly artificial w r ere these early systems 
that animals were often tabulated among the plants, 
and plants among the animals. " In early attempts," 
says Herbert Spencer, " to arrange organic beings 
in some systematic manner, we see at first a 
guidance by conspicuous and simple characters, and 
a tendency towards arrangement in lineal order. In 
successively later attempts, we see more regard paid 
to combinations of character w T hich are essential 
but often inconspicuous ; and a gradual abandon- 
ment of a linear arrangement for an arrangement 
in divergent groups and re-divergent sub-groups.* 
almost all the natural sciences have already passed 
through these stages ; and one or two which rested 
entirely on external characters have all but ceased 
to exist — Conchology, for example, which has 
yielded its place to Malacology. Following in the 
wake of the other sciences the classification of 
Theology may have to be remodelled in the same 
way. The popular classification, whatever its merits 
* " Principles of Biology," p. 294. 



358 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

from a practical point of view, is essentially a clas- 
sification based on Morphology. The whole ten- 
dency of science now is to include along with 
morphological considerations the profounder general- 
izations of Physiology and Embryology. And the 
contribution of the latter science especially has been 
found so important that biology henceforth must 
look for its classification largely to Embryological 
character. 

But apart from the demand of modern scientific 
culture it is palpably foreign to Christianity, not 
merely as a Philosophy but as a Biology, to classify 
men only in terms of the former. And it is some- 
what remarkable that the writers of both the Old 
and New Testaments seem to have recognized the 
deeper basis. The favorite classification of the 
Old Testament was into "the nations which knew 
God " and " the nations which knew not God " — a 
distinction which we have formerly seen to be, at 
bottom, biological. In the New Testament again 
the ethical characters are more prominent, but the 
cardinal distinctions based on regeneration, if not 
always actually referred to, are throughout kept in 
view, both in the sayings of Christ and in the 
Epistles. 

What then is the deeper distinction drawn by 
Christianity? "What is the essential difference be- 
tween the Christian and thenot-a-Christian, between 
the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty? It is 
the distinction between the Organic and the In- 
organic. Moral beauty is the product of the natural 



CLASSIFICATION. 359 

man, spiritual beauty of the spiritual man. And 
these two, according to the law of Biogenesis are 
separated from, one another by the deepest line 
known to Science. This Law is at once the founda- 
tion of Biology and of Spiritual religion. And the 
whole fabric of Christianity falls into confusion if 
we attempt to ignore it. The Law of Biogenesis, 
in fact, is to be regarded as the equivalent in 
biology of the First Law of Motion in physics: 
Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform 
motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is 
compelled by forces to change that state. The first 
Law of biology is : That which is Mineral is 
Mineral ; that which is Flesh is Flesh ; that which 
is Spirit is Spirit. The mineral remains in the 
inorganic world until it is seized upon by a some- 
thing called Life outside the inorganic world ; the 
natural man remains the natural man. until a Spirit- 
ual Life from without the natural life seizes upon 
him, regenerates him, changes him into a spiritual 
man. The peril of the illustration from the law of 
motion will not be felt at least by those who appre- 
ciate the distinction between Physics and biology, 
between Energy and Life. The change of state 
here is not as in physics a mere change of direction, 
the affections directed to a new object, the will into 
a new channel. The change involves all this, but is 
something deeper. It is a change of nature, a re- 
generation, a passing from death into life. Hence 
relatively to this high life the natural life is no 
longer Life, but Death, and the natural man from 



360 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the standpoint of Christianity is dead. Whatever 
assent the mind may give to this proposition, how- 
ever much it has been overlooked in the past, how- 
ever it compares with casual observation, it is certain 
that the Founder of the Christian religion intended 
this to be the keystone of Christianity. In the prop- 
osition That which is flesh is flesh, and that which 
is spirit is spirit, Christ formulates the first law of 
biological religion, and lays the basis for a final 
classification. He divides men into two classes, the 
living and the not-living. And Paul afterwards 
carries out the classification consistently, making his 
entire system depend on it, and throughout arranging 
men, on the one hand as itoeufutrt^ — spiritual, on the 
other as 0o/.';$o r ? — carnal, in terms of Christ's dis- 
tinction. 

Suppose now it be granted for a moment that the 
character of the not-a-Christian is as beautiful as 
that of the Christian. This is simply to say that the 
crystal is as beautiful as the organism. One is quite 
entitled to hold this ; but what he is not entitled to 
hold is that both in the same sense are living. He 
that hath the Son has Life, and he that hath not the 
Son of God has not Life. And in the face of this 
law, no other conclusion is possible than that that 
which is flesh remains flesh. No matter how great 
the development of beauty, that which is flesh is 
withal flesh. The elaborateness or the perfection of 
the moral development in any given instance can do 
nothing to break down this distinction. Man is a 
moral animal, and can, and ought to, arrive at great 



CLASSIFICATION. 361 

natural beauty of character. But this is simply to 
obey the law of his nature — the law of his flesh ; 
and no progress along that line can project him into 
the spiritual sphere. If any one choose to claim that 
the mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural 
moral beauty, is all he covets, he is entitled to his 
claim. To be good and true, pure and benevolent in 
the moral sphere, are high, and, so far, legitimate 
objects of life. If he deliberately stop here, he is at 
liberty to do so. But what he is not entitled to do 
is to call himself a Christian, or to claim to discharge 
the functions peculiar to the Christian life. His 
morality is mere crystallization, the crystallizing 
forces having had fair play in his development. 
Bat these forces have no more touched the sphere 
of Christianity than the frost on the window-pane 
can do more than simulate the external forms of 
life. And if he considers that the high development 
to which he has reached may pass by an insensible 
transition into spirituality, or that his moral nature 
of itself may flash into the flame of regenerate Life, 
he has to be reminded that in spite of the apparent 
connection of these things from one standpoint, 
from another there is none at all, or none discover- 
able by us. On the one hand, there being no such 
thing as Spontaneous Generation, his moral nature, 
however it may encourage it, cannot generate Life ; 
while, on the other, his high organization can never 
in itself result in Life, Life being always the cause 
of organization and never the effect of it. 

Th© practical question may now ba aakad, is thi« 



362 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

distinction palpable ? Is it a mere conceit of Science, 
of what human interests attach to it? If it cannot 
be proved that the resulting moral or spiritual 
beauty is higher in the one case than in the other, 
the biological distinction is useless. And if the ob- 
jection is pressed that the spiritual man has nothing 
further to effect in the direction of morality, seeing 
that the natural man can successfully compete with 
him, the questions thus raised become of serious 
significance. That objection would certainly be fatal 
which could show that the spiritual world was not 
as high in its demand for a lofty morality as the 
natural ; and that biology would be equally false and 
dangerous which should in the least encourage the 
view that " without holiness " a man could " see the 
Lord." These questions accordingly we must briefly 
consider. It is necessary to promise, however, that 
the difficulty is not peculiar to the present position. 
This is simply the old difficulty of distinguishing 
spirituality and morality. 

In seeking whatever light Science may have to offer 
as to the difference between the natural and the spiri- 
tual man, we first submit the question to Embryology. 
And if its actual contribution is small, we shall at 
least be indebted to it for an important reason why 
the difficulty should exist at all. That there is grave 
difficulty in deciding between two given characters, 
the one natural, the other spiritual, is conceded. 
But if we can find a sufficient justification for so 
perplexing a circumstance, the fact loses weight as 



CLASSIFICATION. 363 

an objection, and the whole problem is placed on a 
different footing. 

The difference on the score of beauty between the 
crystal and the shell, let us say once more, is im- 
perceptible. But fix attention for a moment, not 
upon their appearance, but upon their possibilities, 
upon their relation to the future, and upon their 
place in evolution. The crystal has reached its 
ultimate stage of development. It can never be 
more beautiful than it is now. Take it to pieces and 
give it the opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and 
it will just do the same thing over again. It will 
form itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on repeat- 
ing this same form ad infinitum as often as it is dis- 
solved, and without ever improving by ahairsbreadth. 
Its law of crystallization allows it to reach this limit, 
and nothing else within its kingdom can do any 
more for it. In dealing with the crystal, in short, 
we are dealing with the maximum beauty of the 
inorganic world. But in dealing with the shell, we 
are not dealing with the maximum achievement of 
the organic world. In itself it is one of the humblest 
forms of the invertebrate sub-kingdom of the organic 
world; and there are other forms within this king- 
dom so different from the shell in a hundred respects 
that to mistake them would simply be impossible. 

In dealing with a man of fine moral character, 
again, we are dealing with the highest achievement 
of the organic kingdom. But in dealing with a 
spiritual man we are dealing with the lowest forin of 
life in the spiritual world. To contrast the two 



364 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

therefore, and marvel that the one is apparently so 
little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust. 
The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, 
hidden as yet in his earthly chrysalis-case, while the 
natural man has the breeding and evolution of ages 
represented in his character. But what are the 
possibilities of this spiritual organism ? What is yet 
to emerge from this chrvsalis-case ? The natural 
character finds its limits within the organic sphere. 
But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? 
Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo 
it contains some prophecy of its future glory. But 
the point to mark is, that it doth not yet appear what 
it shall be. 

The want of organization, thus, does not surprise 
us. All life begins at the Amoeboid stage. Evolution 
is from the simple to the complex ; and in every case 
it is some time before organization is advanced 
enough to admit of exact classification. A natural- 
ist's only serious difficulty in classification is when 
he comes to deal with low or embryonic forms. It 
is impossible, for instance, to mistake an oak for 
an elephant ; but at the bottom of the vegetable 
series, and at the bottom of the animal series, 
there are organisms of so doubtful a character that 
it is equally impossible to distinguish them. So 
formidable, indeed, has been this difficulty that 
Haeckel has had to propose an intermediate regnum 
protisticum to contain those forms the rudimentary 
character of which makes it impossible to apply the 
determining tests. 



CLASSIFICATION. 365 

We mention this merely to show the difficulty of 
classification and not for analogy ; for the proper 
analogy is not between vegetable and animal forms, 
whether high or low, but between the living and the 
dead. And here the difficulty is certainly not so 
great. By suitable tests it is generally possible to 
distinguish the organic from the inorganic. The 
ordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, and 
innumerable forms are assigned by the popular judg- 
ment to the inorganic world which are nevertheless 
undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spirit- 
ual world. To a cursory glance these rudimentary 
spiritual forms may not seem to exhibit the pheno- 
mena of Life, and therefore the living and the dead 
may be often classed as one. But let the appropriate 
scientific tests be applied. In the almost amorphous 
organism, the pl^siologist ought alread} 7 to be able 
to detect the symptoms of a dawning life. And 
further research might even bring to light some faint 
indication of the lines along which the further de- 
velopment was to proceed. Now it is not impossible 
that among the tests for Life there may be some 
which may fitly be applied to the spiritual organism. 
"We may therefore at this point hand over the prob- 
lem to Physiology. 

The tests for Life are of two kinds. It is remark- 
able that one of them was proposed, in the spiritual 
sphere, by Christ. Foreseeing the difficulty of 
determining the characters and functions of rudi- 
mentary organisms, He suggested that the point be 
decided by a further evolution. Time for develop- 



366 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ment was to be allowed, during which the marks of 
Life, if any, would become more pronounced, while 
in the meantime judgment was to be suspended. 
" Let both grow together," he said, " until the 
harvest." This is a thoroughly scientific test. Ob- 
viously, however, it cannot assist us for the present — 
except in the way of enforcing extreme caution in 
attempting any classification at all. 

The second test is at least not so manifestly im- 
practicable. It is to apply the ordinary methods by 
which biology attempts to distinguish the organic 
from the inorganic. The characteristics of Life, 
according to Physiology, are four in number — 
Assimilation, Waste Reproduction, and Spontaneous 
Action. If an organism is found to exercise these 
functions, it is said to be alive. ~Now these tests, in 
a spiritual sense, might fairly be applied to the 
spiritual man. The experiment would be a delicate 
one. It might not be open to every one to attempt 
it. This is a scientific question ; and the experiment 
would have to be conducted under proper conditions 
and by competent persons. But even on the first 
statement it will be plain to all who are familiar 
with spiritual diagnosis that the experiment could 
be made, and especially on oneself, with some hope 
of success. Biological considerations, however, would 
warn us not to expect too much. Whatever be the 
inadequacy of Morphology, Physiology can never 
be studied apart from it ; and the investigation of 
function 'merely as function is a task of extreme 
difficulty. Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, " We have 



CLASSIFICATION. 367 

next to no power of tracing up the genesis of a 
function considered purely as a function — no op- 
portunity of observing the progressively-increasing 
quantities of a given action that have arisen in any 
order of organisms. In nearly all cases we are able 
only to establish the greater growth of the part which 
we have found performs the action, and to infer that 
greater action of the part has accompanied greater 
growth of it." * Such being the case, it would serve 
no purpose to indicate the details of a barely possible 
experiment. We are merely showing, at the mo- 
ment, that the question " How do I know that I am 
alive" is not, in the spiritual sphere, incapable of 
solution. One might, nevertheless, single out some 
distinctively spiritual function and ask himself if he 
consciously discharged it. The discharging of that 
function is upon biological principles, equivalent to 
being alive, and therefore the subject of the experi- 
ment could certainly come to some conclusion as to 
his place on a biological scale. The real significance 
of his actions on the moral scale might be less eas} r 
to determine, but he could at least tell where he 
stood as tested by the standard of life — he would 
know whether he was living or dead. After all, the 
best test of Life is just living. And living consists, 
as we have formerly seen, in corresponding with 
Environments. Those therefore who find within 
themselves, and regularly exercise, the faculties for 
corresponding with the Divine Environment, may be 
said to live the Spiritual Life. 

* " Principles of Biology," vol. ii., pp. 222, 223. 



368 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

That this Life also, even in the embryonic or* 
ganisra, ought already to betray itself to others, is 
certainly what one would expect. Every organism 
has its own reaction upon Mature, and the reaction 
of the spiritual organism upon the community muss 
be looked for. In the absence of any such reaction 
in the absence of any token that it lived for a higher 
purpose, or that its real interests were those of the 
Kingdom to which it professed to belong, we should 
be entitled to question its being in that Kingdom. 
It is obvious that each Kingdom has its own ends 
and interests, its own functions to discharge in 
Nature. It is also a law that every organism lives 
for its Kingdom. And man's place in Nature, or 
his position among the kingdoms, is to be decided 
by the characteristic functions habitually discharged 
by him. Now when the habits of certain individuals 
are closely observed, when the total effect of their 
life and work, with regard to the community, is 
caused — as carefullv observed and gauged as the 
influence of certain individuals in a colony of ants 
might be observed and gauged by Sir John Lubbock 
— there ought to be no difficulty in deciding whether 
they are living for the Organic or for the Spirtual ; 
in plainer language, for the world or for God. The 
question of Kingdoms, at least, would be settled 
without mistake. The place of any given individual 
in his own Kingdom is a different matter. That is 
a question possibly for ethics. But from the bio- 
logical standpoint, if a man is living for the world it 
is immaterial how well he lives for it. He ought to 



CLASSIFICATION. 369 

live well for it. However important it is for his own 
Kingdom, it does not affect his biological relation to 
the other Kingdom whether his character is perfect 
or imperfect. He may even to some extent assume 
the outward form of organism belonging to the higher 
Kingdom ; but so long as his reaction upon the 
world is the reaction of his species, he is to be classed 
with his species, so long as the bent of his life is in 
the direction of the world, he remains a worldling. 

Recent botanical and entomological researches 
have made Science familiar with what is termed 
Mimicry. Certain organisms in one Kingdom as- 
sume, for purposes of their own, the outward form 
of organisms belonging to another, This curious 
hypocrisy is practised both by plants and animals, 
the object being to secure some personal advantage, 
usually safety, which would be denied were the 
organism always to play its part in Nature in propria 
persona. Thus the Ceroxylus laceratus of Borneo 
has assumed so perfectly the disguise of a moss- 
covered branch as to evade the attack of insectiv- 
orous birds ; and others of the walking-stick insect 
and leaf-butterflies practise similar deceptions with 
great effrontery and success. It is a striking result 
of the indirect influence of Christianitv, or of a 
spurious Christianity, that the religious world has 
come to be populated — how largely one can scarce 
venture to think — with mimetic species. In few 
cases, probably, is this a conscious deception. In 
many doubtless it is induced, as in Ceroxylus, by 
ths desirt for safety. But in a majority of instances 
24 



370 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

it is the natural effect of the prestige of a great 
system upon those who, coveting its benedictions, 
yet fail to understand its true nature, or decline 
to bear its profounder responsibilities. It is here 
that the test of Life becomes of supreme impor- 
tance.. No classification on the ground of form can 
exclude mimetic species, or discover them to them- 
selves. But if man's place among the Kingdoms 
is determined by his functions, a careful estimate of 
his life in itself and in its reaction upon surrounding 
lives, ought at once to betray his real position. No 
matter what may be the moral uprightness of his 
life, the honorableness of his career, or the ortho- 
doxy of his creed, if he exercises the function of 
loving the world, that defines his world — he belongs 
to the Organic Kingdom. He cannot in that case 
belong to the higher Kingdom. " If any man love 
the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 
After all, it is by the general bent of a man's life, 
by his heart-impulses and secret desires, his spon- 
taneous actions and abiding motives, that his gen- 
eration is declared. 

The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation from 
the world, uncompromising allegiance to the King- 
dom of God, entire surrender of body, soul, and 
spirit to Christ — these are truths which rise into 
prominence from time to time, become the watch- 
word of insignificant parties, rouse the church to 
attention and the world to opposition, and die down 
ultimately for want of lives to live them. The few 
enthusiasts who distinguish in these requirements 



CLASSIFICATION. 371 

the essential conditions of entrance into the King- 
dom of Christ are overpowered by the weight of 
numbers, who see nothing more in Christianity than 
a mild religiousness, and who demand nothing 1 more 
in themselves or in their fellow-Christians than the 
participation in a conventional worship, the accep- 
tance of traditional beliefs, and the living of an 
honest life. Yet nothing is more certain than that 
the enthusiasts are right. Any impartial survey — 
such as the unique analysis in " Ecce Homo "—of the 
claims of Christ and of the nature of His society, 
will convince anyone who cares to make the inquiry 
of the outstanding difference between the sj 7 stem 
of Christianity in the original contemplation and its 
representations in modern life. Christianity marks 
the advent of what is simply a new kingdom. Its 
distinctions from the Kingdom below it are funda- 
mental. It demands from its members activities 
and responses of an altogether novel order. It is, 
in the conception of its Founder, a Kingdom for 
which all its adherents must henceforth exclusively- 
live and work, and which opens its gates alone upon 
those who, having counted the cost, are prepared 
to follow it if need be to the death. The surrender 
Christ demanded was absolute. Every aspirant for 
membership must seek first the Kingdom of God. 
And in order to enforce the demand of allegiance, 
or rather with an unconsciousness which contains the 
finest evidence for its justice, He even assumed the 
title of King — a claim which in other circumstances, 
and were these not the symbols of a higher royalty, 



.372 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

seems so strangely foreign to one who is meek and 
lowly in heart. 

But this imperious claim of a Kingdom upon its 
members is not peculiar to Christianity. It is the 
law in all departments of Nature that every 
organism must live for its Kingdom. And in de- 
fining living for the higher Kingdom as the con- 
dition of living in it, Christ enunciates a principle 
which all Nature has prepared us to expect. Every 
province has its peculiar exactions, eveiy Kingdom 
levies upon its subjects the tax of an exclusive 
obedience, and punishes disloyalty always with 
death. It was the neglect of this principle — that 
every organism must live for its Kingdom if it is 
to live in it — which first slowly depopulated the 
spiritual world. The example of its Founder ceased 
to find imitators, and the consecration of His early 
followers came to be regarded as a superfluous 
enthusiasm. And it is this same misconception of 
the fundamental principle of all Kingdoms that has 
deprived modern Christianity of its vitality. The 
failure to regard the exclusive claims of Christ as 
more than accidental, rhetorical or ideal ; the failure 
to discern the essential difference between his King- 
dom and all other systems based on the lines of 
natural religion, and therefore merely Organic; in 
a word, the general neglect of the claims of Christ 
as the Founder of a new and higher Kingdom — 
these have taken the very heart from the religion 
of Christ and left its evangel without power to 
impress or bless the world. Until even religious 



CLASSIFICATION. 373 

men see the uniqueness of Christ's society, until 
they acknowledge to the fall extent its claim to be 
nothing less than a new Kingdom, they will continue 
the hopeless attempt to live for two Kingdoms at 
once. And hence the value of a more explicit 
Classification. For probably the most of the diffi- 
culties of trying to live the Christian life arise from 
attempting to half -live it. 

As a merely verbal matter, this identification of 
the Spiritual World with what are known to Science 
as Kingdoms, necessitates an explanation. The 
suggested relation of the Kingdom of Christ to the 
Mineral and Animal Kingdoms does not, of course, 
depend upon the accident that the Spiritual World 
is named in the sacred writings by the same word. 
This certainly lends an appearance of fancy to the 
generalization : and one feels tempted at first to 
dismiss it with a smile. But, in truth, it is no 
mere play on the word Kingdom. Science de- 
mands the classification of every organism. And. 
here is an organism of a unique kind, a living 
energetic spirit, a new creature Avhich, by an act 
of generation, has been forgotten of God. Starting 
from the point that the spiritual life is to be studied 
biologically, we must at once proceed, as the first 
step in the scientific examination of this organism, 
to enter it in its appropriate class. "Now two King- 
doms, at the present time, are known to Science — 
the Inorganic and the Organic. It does not belong 
to the Inorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It does 



374 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

not belong to the Organic Kingdom, because it is 
endowed with a kind of Life in finitely removed from 
either the vegetal or animal. Where then shall it 
be classed ? We are left without an alternative. 
There being no Kingdom known to Science which 
can contain it, we must construct one. Or rather 
we must include in the programme of Science a 
Kingdom already constructed but the place of 
which in science has not yet been recognized. That 
Kingdom is the Kingdom of God. 

Taking now this larger view of the content of 
science, we may leave the case of the individual 
and pass on to outline the scheme of Nature as a 
whole. The general conception will be as follows : — 

First, w T e find at the bottom of everything the 
Mineral or Inorganic Kingdom. Its characteristics 
are, first, that so far as the sphere above it is con- 
cerned it is dead ; second, that although dead it 
furnishes the physical basis of life to the Kingdom 
next in order. It is thus absolutely essential to 
the Kingdom above it. And the more minutely 
the detailed structure and ordering of the whole 
fabric are investigated it becomes increasingly 
apparent that the Inorganic Kingdom is the prep- 
aration for, and the prophecy of, the Organic. 

Second, we come to the world next in order, 
the world containing plant, and animal, and man, 
the Organic Kingdom. Its characteristics are, 
first, that so far as the sphere above it is con- 
cerned it is dead ; and, second, although dead it 



CLASSIFICATION. 375 

supplies in turn the basis of life to the Kingdom 
next in order. And the more minutely the detailed 
structure and ordering of the whole fabric are 
investigated, it is obvious, in turn, that the Organic 
Kingdom is the preparation for, and the prophecy 
of, the Spiritual. 

Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual King- 
dom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What its charac- 
teristics are, relatively to any hypothetical higher 
Kingdom, necessarily remain unknown. That the 
Spiritual, in turn, may be the preparation for, and 
the prophecy of, something still higher is not im- 
possible. But the very conception of a Fourth 
Kingdom transcends us, and if it exist, the Spiritual 
organism, by the analogy, must remain at present 
wholly dead to it. 

The warrant for adding this Third Kingdom con- 
sists, as just stated, in the fact that there are 
organisms which from their peculiar origin, nature, 
and destiny cannot be fitly entered in either of the 
two Kingdoms now known to science. The Second 
Kingdom is proclaimed by the advent upon the 
stage of the First, of once horn organisms. The 
Third is ushered in by the appearance, among these 
once-born organisms, of forms of life which have 
been born again — twice-horn organisms. The classi- 
fication, therefore, is based, from the scientific side 
on certain facts of embryology and on the Law of 
Biogenesis : and from the theological side on cer- 
tain facts of experience and on the doctrine of Re- 



376 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

generation. To those who hold either to Biogenesis 
or to Regeneration, there is no escape from a Third 
Kingdom.* 

There is, in this conception of a high and spiritual 
organism rising out of the highest point of the 
Organic Kingdom, in the hypothesis of the Spiritual 
Kingdom itself, a Third Kingdom following the 
Second in sequence as orderly as the Second follows 
the First, a Kingdom utilizing the materials of both 
the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their laws, and, 
above all, accounting for these lower Kingdoms in a 
legitimate way and complementing them in the only 
known way — there is in all this a suggestion of the 
greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the Evolution 
hypothesis, too impressive to pass unnoticed. The 
strength of the doctrine of Evolution, at least in its 
broader outlines, is now such that its verdict on any 
biological question is a consideration of moment. 
And if any further defence is needed for the idea of 

* Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for in- 
stance Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing 
to their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy 
the biologist — any more than the above will wholly satisf}^ 
the philosopher. Both are needed. Rothe in his " Aphor- 
isms " strikingly notes one point : " Es ist beachtenswerth, 
wie in der Schopfung immer aus der Auflosung der nachst 
niederen Stufe die nachst hohere hervorgeht, so dass jene 
immer das Substrat zur Erzeugung dieser Kraft der 
schopferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es denn nicht 
anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus 
sich selbst.) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich 
das Mineral, aus deoa verwitterten Material die Pflanze aus 
der verTvsst©ri Pflana® das Thier. So erhebt *ich audi au» 



CLASSIFICATION. S17 

a Third Kingdom it may be found in the singular 
harmony of the whole conception with this great 
modern truth. It might even be asked whether a 
complete and consistent theory of Evolution does 
not really demand such a conception ? Why should 
Evolution stop with the Organic? It is surely 
obvious that the complement of Evolution is Advo- 
lution, and the inquiry, Yfhence has all this system 
of things come, is, after all, of minor importance 
compared with the question, Whither does all this 
tend ? Science, as such, may have little to say on 
such a question. And it is perhaps impossible, with 
such faculties as we now possess, to imagine an 
Evolution with a future as great as its past. So 
stupendous is the development from the atom to the 
man that no point can be fixed in the future as 
distant from what man is now as he is from the 
atom. But it has been given to Christianity to 
disclose the lines of a further Evolution. And if 
Science also professes to offer a further Evolution, 
not the most sanguine evolutionist will venture to 
contrast it, either as regards the dignity of its 
methods, the magnificence of its aims, or the cer- 
tainty of its hopes, with the prospects of the Spiritual 
Kingdom. That Science has a prospect of some sort 
to hold out to man is not denied. But its limits are 
already marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after in- 
vestigating its possibilities fully, tells us, "Evolution 

dem in die Elemente zurucksinkenden Materiel len Mens- 
chen der Geist, das geistige Geschopf." — " Stille Stunden," 
p. 64. 



378 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

has an impassable limit." * It is the distinct claim 
of the Third Kingdom that this limit is not final. 
Christianity opens a way to a further development 
— a development apart, from which the magnificent 
past of Nature has been in vain, and without which 
Organic Evolution, in spite of the elaborateness of 
its processes and the vastness of its achievements, 
is simply a stupendous cut de sac. Far as Nature 
carries on the task, vast as is the distance between 
the atom and the man, she has to lay down her tools 
when the work is just begun. Man, her most rich 
and finished product, marvellous in his complexity, 
all but Divine in sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom 
not even a shapeless embryo. The old chain of pro- 
cesses must begin again on the higher plane if there 
is to be a further Evolution. The highest organism 
of the Second Kingdom — simple, immobile, dead as 
the inorganic crystal, towards the sphere above — 
must be vitalized afresh. Then from a mass of all 
but homogeneous " protoplasm " the organism must 
pass through all the stages of differentiation and in- 
tegration, growing in perfectness and beauty under 
the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it reaches 
the Infinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God, 
So the spiritual carries on the marvellous process to 
which all lower Nature ministers, and perfects it 
when the ministry of lower Nature fails. 

This conception of a further Evolution carries with 
it the final answer to the charge that, as regards 
morality, the Spiritual world has nothing to offer 
* " First Principles," p. 440. 



CLASSIFICATION. 379 

man that is not already within his reach. Will it be 
contended that a perfect morality is already within 
the reach of the natural man % What product of the 
organic creation has ever attained to the fulness of 
the stature of Him who is the Founder and Type 
of the Spiritual Kingdom ? What do men know of 
the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or at what 
value do they even estimate them ? Proved by 
results, it is surely already decided that on merely 
natural lines moral perfection is unattainable. And 
even Science is beginning to waken to the momen- 
tous truth that Man, the highest product of the 
Organic Kingdom, is a disappointment. But even 
were it otherwise, if even in prospect the hopes of 
the Organic Kingdom could be justified, its standard 
of beauty is not so high, nor, in spite of the dreams 
of Evolution, is its guarantee so certain. The goal 
of the organisms of the Spiritual World is nothing 
less than this — to be " holy as He is holy, and pure 
as He is pure." And by the Law of Conformity to 
Type, their final perfection is secured. The inward 
nature must develop out according to its Type, until 
the consummation of oneness with God is reached. 
These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in the 
direction of Evolution are at least entitled to be 
carefully considered by Science. Christianity de- 
fines the highest conceivable future for mankind. It 
satisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the 
necessary conditions for carrying on the organism 
successfully, from stage to stage. It provides against 
the tendency to Degeneration, And finally, instead 



380 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

of limiting the yearning hope of final perfection to 
the organisms of a future age, — an age so remote 
that the hope for thousands of years must still be 
hopeless, — instead of inflicting this cruelty on intelli- 
gences mature enough to know perfection and ear- 
nest enough to wish it, Christianity puts the prize 
within the immediate reach of man. 

This attempt to incorporate the Spiritual Kingdom 
in the scheme of Evolution, may be met by what 
seems at first sight a fatal objection. So far from 
the idea of a Spiritual Kingdom being in harmony 
with the doctrine of Evolution, it may be said that 
it is violently opposed to it. It announces a new 
Kingdom starting of suddenly on a different plane 
and in direct violation of the primary principle of 
development. Instead of carrying the organic evo- 
lution further on its own lines, theology at a given 
point interposes a sudden and hopeless barrier — the 
barrier between the natural and the spiritual — and 
insists that the evolutionary process must begin 
again at the beginning. At this point, in fact, 
Nature acts per solium. This is no Evolution, but 
a Catastrophe — such a Catastrophe as must be fatal 
to any consistent development hypothesis. 

On the surface this objection seems final — but it 
is only on the surface. It arises from taking a too 
narrow view of what Evolution is. It takes evolution 
in zoology for Evolution as a whole. Evolution 
began, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass 
in which lay potentially all future worlds. Under 
the evolutionary hand, the amorphous cloud broke 



CLASSIFICATION. 381 

up, condensed, took definite shape, and in the line 
of true development assumed a gradually increasing 
complexity. Finally there emerged the cooled and 
finished earth, highly differentiated, so to speak, 
complete and fully equipped. And what followed ? 
Let it be well observed — a Catastrophe. Instead of 
carrying the process further, the Evolution, if this is 
Evolution, here also abruptly stops. A sudden and 
hopeless barrier — the barrier between the Inorganic 
and the Organic — interposes, and the process has to 
begin again at the beginning with the creation of 
Life. Here then is a barrier placed by Science at 
the close of the Inorganic similar to the barrier 
placed by Theology at the close of the Organic. 
Science has used every effort to abolish this first 
barrier, but there it still stands challenging the 
attention of the modern world, and no consistent 
theory of Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any 
objection, then, to the Catastrophe introduced by 
ChristianhVy between the Natural and the Spiritual 
Kingdoms applies with equal force against the 
barrier which Science places between the Inorganic 
and the Organic. The reserve of Life in either case 
is a fact, and a fact of exceptional significance. 

What then becomes of Evolution ? Do these two 
great barriers destroy it? By no means. But they 
make it necessary to frame a larger doctrine. And 
the doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlarge- 
ment. For now the case stands thus : Evolution, in 
harmony with its own law that progress is from the 
simple to the complex, begins itself to pass towards 



382 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the complex. The materialistic Evolution so to 
speak, is a straight line. Making all else complex, 
it alone remains simple — unscientifically simple. 
But as Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now 
seen to be itself slow] v unfolding. The straight line 
is coming out gradually in curves. At a given point 
a new force appears deflecting it ; and at another 
given point a new force appears deflecting that. 
These points are not unrelated points ; these forces 
are not unrelated forces. The arrangement is still 
harmonious, and the development throughout obeys 
the evolutionary law in being from the general to the 
special, from the lower to the higher. What we are 
reaching, in short, is nothing less than the evolution 
of Evolution. 

Now to both Science and Christianity, and espe- 
cially to Science, this enrichment of Evolution is 
important. And, on the part of Christianity, the 
contribution to the system of Nature of a second 
barrier is of real scientific value. At first it may 
seem merely to increase the difficulty. But in reality 
it abolishes it. However paradoxical it seems, it is 
nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy 
to understand than one — two mysteries are less 
mysterious than a single mystery. For it requires 
two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a 
Catastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an 
eclipse at different periods makes an eclipse no 
breach of Continuity ; just as the fact that the astro- 
nomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial 
Period will in the remote future again be fulfilled 



CLASSIFICATION. 383 

constitutes the Great Ice Age a normal phenomenon ; 
so the recurrence of two periods associated with 
special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and 
by the law necessarily higher, is no violation of the 
principle of Evolution. Thus even in the matter of 
adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the 
Third Kingdom may already claim to complement 
the Science of the Second. The overthrow of Spon- 
taneous Generation has left a break in Continuity 
which continues to put Science to confusion. Alone, 
it is as abnormal and perplexing to the intellect as 
the first eclipse. But if the Spiritual Kingdom can 
supply Science with a companion-phenomenon, the 
most exceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls 
within the domain of Law. This, however, is no 
more than might be expected from a Third King- 
dom. True to its place as the highest of the King- 
doms, it ought to embrace all that lies beneath and 
give to the First and Second their final explanation. 
How much more in the under- Kingdoms might be 
explained or illuminated upon this principle, how- 
ever tempting might be the inquiry, we cannot turn 
aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom 
in the order of Evolution implies that it holds the 
key to much that is obscure in the world around — 
much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. 
A single obvious instance will serve to illustrate the 
fertility of the method. What has this Kingdom to 
contribute to Science with regard to the problem of 
the origin of Life itself ? Taking this as an isolated 
phenomenon, neither the Second Kingdom, nor 



384 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

the Third, apart from revelation, has anything to 
pronounce. But when we observe the companion- 
phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question 
is simplified. It will be disputed by none that the 
source of Life in the Spiritual World is God. And 
as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in both 
spheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower 
and affirm it to be at least likely that the origin of 
life there has been the same. 

There remains yet one other objection of a some- 
what different order, and which is only referred to 
because it is certain to be raised by those who fail to 
appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those whose 
sympathies are rather with Philosophy than with 
Science may incline to dispute the allocation of so 
high an organism as man to the merely vegetal and 
animal Kingdom. Recognizing the immense moral 
and intellectual distinctions between him and even 
the highest animal, thev would introduce a third 
barrier between man and animal — a barrier even 
greater than that between the Inorganic and the 
Organic. Now, no science can be blind to these 
distinctions. The only question is whether they are 
of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify 
man in a separate Kingdom. And to this the answer 
of Science is in the negative. Modern Science 
knows only two Kingdoms — the Inorganic and the 
Organic. A barrier between man and animal there 
may be, but it is a different barrier from that which 
separates Inorganic from Organic. But even were 
this to be denied, and in spite of all science it will be 



CLASSIFICATION. 385 

denied, it would make no difference as regards the 
general question. It would merely interpose another 
Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual, the 
other relations remaining as before. Any one, there- 
fore, with a theory to support as to the exceptional 
creation of the Human Race will find the present 
classification elastic enough for his purpose. Phi- 
losophy, of course, may propose another arrangement 
of the Kingdoms if it chooses. It is only contended 
that this is the order demanded by Biology. To add 
another Kingdom mid-way between the Organic and 
the Spiritual, could that be justified at any future 
time on scientific grounds, would be a mere question 
of further detail. 

Studies in Classification, beginning with consider- 
ations of quality, usually end with a reference to 
quantity. And though one would willingly termi- 
nate the inquiry on the threshold of such a subject, 
the example of Revelation not less than the analogies 
of Nature press for at least a general statement. 

The broad impression gathered from the utterances 
of the Founder of the Spiritual Kingdom is that the 
number of organisms to be included in it is to be 
comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic 
of the new Society is to be its selectness. "Many 
are called," said Christ, " but few are chosen." And 
when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of 
membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and 
aspirations of average men, the force of the verdict 
becomes apparent. In its bearing upon the general 
question, such a conclusion is not without suggestive* 
*5 



386 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

ness. Here again is another evidence of the radical 

nature of Christianity. That " few are chosen " indi- 
cates a deeper view of the relation of Christ's King- 
dom to the world, and stricter qualifications of 
membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed 
for in the ordinary practice of religion. 

The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less 
striking — it may be added, not less solemn. It is an 
open secret, to be read in a hundred analogies from 
the world around, that of the millions of possible en- 
trants for advancement in any department of Nature 
the number ultimately selected for preferment is small. 
Here also " many are called and few are chosen." 
The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, of 
human lives, are too familiar to be quoted. In certain 
details, possibly, these comparisons are inappropriate. 
But there are other analogies, wider and more just, 
which strike deeper into the system of Nature. A 
comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature 
discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen slowly 
contracts as we rise in the scale of being. Some 
mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable ; some vege- 
table, but not all, becomes animal ; some animal, 
but not all, becomes human ; some human, but not 
all, becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At 
the base is the mineral, most broad and simple; the 
spiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differ- 
entiated. So form rises above form, Kingdom above 
Kingdom. Quantity decreases as quality increases. 

The gravitation of the whole system of Nature 



CLASSIFICATION. 387 

towards quality is surely a phenomenon of com- 
manding interest. And if among the more recent 
revelations of .Nature there is one thing more signifi- 
cant for Religion than another, it is the majestic 
spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms towards scarcer 
yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends, Of 
the early stage, the first development of the earth 
from the nebulous matrix of space, Science, speaks 
with reserve. The second, the evolution of each 
individual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the 
formed adult, is proved. The still wider evolution, 
not of solitary individuals, but of all the individuals 
within each province — in the vegetal world from the 
unicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in 
the animal world from the amorphous amoeba to 
Man — is at least suspected, the gradual rise of types 
being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we 
see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that 
supreme law which has guided the development from 
simple to complex in matter, in individual, in sub- 
Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three 
great Kingdoms remain, now begin at the begin- 
ning again, directing the evolution of these million- 
peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or 
organisms. Thus, what applies to the individual 
applies to the family, what applies to the family 
applies to the Kingdom what applies to the King- 
dom applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the 
infinite complexity there rises an infinite simplicity, 
the foreshadowing of a final unity, of that 



388 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

M One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." * 

This is the final triumph of Continuity, the heart 
secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christi- 
anity. To Science, defining it as a working principle, 
this mighty process of amelioration is simply Evolu- 
tion. To Christianity, discerning the end through 
the means, it is Redemption. These silent and 
patient processes, elaborating, eliminating, develop- 
ing all from the first of time, conducting the evolu- 
tion from millennium to millennium with unaltering 
purpose and unfaltering power, are the early stages 
in the redemptive work — the unseen approach of that 
Kingdom whose strange mark is that it " cometh 
without observation.' ' And these Kingdoms rising 
tier above tier in ever-increasing sublimity and 
beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in the past, 
their progress, and the direction of their progress, 
being facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since 
the Magi saw His star in the East, have never been 
wanting from the firmament of truth, and which in 
everv age with growing clearness to the wise, and 
with ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, pro- 
claim that " the Kingdom of God is at hand." 

* " In Memoriam." 
Finis, 



A. L. Burt's Catalogue of Books for 
Young People by Popular Writers, 52- 
58 Duane Street, New York ^« ^ ^ 



BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

Joe's Luck: A Boy ? 3 Adventures in California. By 

Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

The story is chock fall of stirring Incidents, while the amusing situ- 
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Dan the Newsboy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, 

cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

Dan Mordaunt and his mother live in a poor tenement, and the lad is 
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Tony the Hero: A Brave Boy's Adventure with a 

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Tony, a sturdy bright-eyed boy of fourteen, is under the control of 
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Tom Temple's Career. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, 

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Tom Temple is a bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village 
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2 A. L. BURT'S BOOKS FOE YOUNG PEOPLE. 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr* 

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Frank Fowler, a poor boy, bravely determines to make a living for 
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Paul Palmer was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother 
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Mark Mason, the telegraph boy, was a sturdy, honest lad, who pluckily 
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Ben Bruce. Scenes in the Life of a Bowery Newsboy. 

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For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by tba 
publisher, A. L. BUST, 62-58 Duane Street, New York. 



A. L. feURT^S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 3 



Wrecked on Spider Island; or, How Ned Kogers Found 

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golden images from the temples. Pursued with relentless vigor at last 
their escape is effected in an astonishing manner. The story is so 
full of exciting incidents that the reader is quite carried away with 
the novelty and realism of the narrative. 

A Kunaway Brig; or, An Accidental Cruise. By 

James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

This is a sea tale, and the reader can look out upon the wide shimmer- 
ing sea as it flashes back the sunlight, and imagine himself afloat with 
Harry Vandyne, Waiter Morse, Jim Libby and that old shell-back, Bob 
Brace, on the brig Bonita. The beys discover a mysterious document 
which enables them to find a buried treasure. They are stranded on 
an island and at last are rescued with the treasure. The boys are sure 
to be fascinated with this entertaining story. 

The Treasure Finders: A Boy's Adventures in 

Nicaragua. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

Roy and Dean Coloney, with their guide Tongla, leave their father's 
indigo plantation to visit the wonderful ruins of an ancient city. The 
boys eagerly explore the temples of an extinct race and discover three 
golden images cunningly hidden away. They escape with the greatest 
difficulty. Eventually they reach safety with their golden prizes. We 
doubt if there ever was written a more entertaining story than "The 
Treasure Finders." 

Jack, the Hunchback. A Story of the Coast of Maine. 

By James Otis. Price $1.00. 

This is the story of a little hunchback who lived on Cape Elizabeth, 
on the coast of Maine. His trials and successes are most interesting. 
From first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. It bears us 
along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses 
its force. 

With Washington at Monmouth: A Story of Three 

Philadelphia Boys. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine 

edges, illustrated, price $1.50. 

Three Philadelphia lads assist the American spies and make regular 
and frequent visits to Valley Forge in the Winter while the British 
occupied the city. The story abounds with pictures of Colonial life 
Bkillfully drawn, and the glimpses of Washington's soldiers which are 
given shown that the work has not been hastily done, or without con- 
siderable study. The story is wholesome and patriotic in tone, as are 
all of Mr. Otis' works. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the 
publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street. New York. 



A. L. BURT'S BOOKS FOE YOUNG PEOPLE. 



BOOKS FOR BOYS. 



With Lafayette at Yorktown: A Story of How Two 

Boys Joined the Continental Army. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental 

cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. 

Two lads from Portmtuth, N. H., attempt to enlist In the Colonial 
Army, and are given employment as spies. There is no lack of exciting 
incidents which the youthful reader craves, but it is healthful excite- 
ment brimming with facts which every boy should be familiar with, 
and while the reader is following the adventures of Ben Jaffrays and 
Ned Allen he is acquiring a fund of historical lore which will remain 
in his memory long after that which he has memorized from text- ' 
books has been forgotten. 

At the Siege of Havana. Being the Experiences of 

Three Boys Serving under Israel Putnam in 1762. By James Otis. 12mo, 

ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. 
"At the Siege of Havana" deals with that portion of the island's 
history when the English king captured the capital, thauks to the 
assistance given by the troops from New England, led In part by Col. 
Israel Putnam. 

The principal characters are Darius Lunt, the lad who, represented as 
telling the story, and his comrades, Robert Clement and Nicholas 
Vallet. Colonel Putnam also figures to considerable extent, necessai-ily, 
In the tale, and the whole forms one of the most readable stories founded on 
historical facts. 

The Defense of Fort Henry. A Story of Wheeling 

Creek in 1777. By James Otts. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, 

illustrated, price Si. 50. 

Nowhere in the history of our country can be found more heroic or 
thrilling incidents than in the story of those brave men and women 
who founded the settlement of Wheeling in the Colony of Virginia. The 
recital of what Elizabeth Zane did is in itself as heroic a story as can 
be imagined. The wondrous bravery displayed by Major McCulloch 
and his gallant comrades, the sufferings of the colonists and their sacrifice 
of blood and life, stir the blood of old as well as young readers. 

The Capture of the Laughing Mary. A Story of Three 

New York Boys in 1776. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine 

edges, price $1.50. 

'•During the British occupancy of New York, at the outbreak of the 
Revolution, a Yankee lad hears of the plot to take General Washington's 
person, and calls in two companions to assist the patriot cause. They 
do some astonishing things, and, incidentally, lay the way for an 
American navy later, by the exploit which gives its name to the 
work. Mr. Otis' books are too well known to reauire any particular 
commendation to the young." — Evening Post. 

With Warren at Bunker Hill. A Story of the Siege of 

Boston. By James Otis. 12mo, ornametnal cloth, olivine edges, illus- 
trated, price $1.50. 

"This is a tale of the siege of Boston, which opens on the day after 
the doings at Lexington and Concord, with a description of home life 
in Boston, introduces the reader to the British camp at Charlestown, 
shows Gen. Warren at home, describes what a boy thought of the 
battle of Bunker HilL and closes with the raising of the siege. The 
three heroes, George Wentworth, Ben Scarlett and an old ropemaker, 
incur the enmity of a young Tory, who causes them many adventures 
the boys will like to read." — Detroit Free Press. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the 
publisher, A. L. BUHT, u 6S-6ftJDuane Street. Hew York. 



A. E. BURT'S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 5 

»— — — i ■ —————————— i ■ 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

With the Swamp Fox. The Story of General Marion's 

Spies. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

This story deals with General Francis Marion's heroic straggle in the 
Carolinas. General Marion's arrival to take command of these brave 
men and rough riders is pictured as a boy might have seen it. and 
although the story is devoted to what the lads did, the Swamp Pox 
is ever present in the mind of the reader. 

On the Kentucky Frontier. A Story of the Fighting 

Pioneers of the West. By James Otis. 12m o, cloth, illustrated, price $1. 

In the history of our country there is no more thrilling story than 
that of the work done on the Mississippi river by a handful of frontiers- 
men. Mr. Otis takes the reader on that famous expedition from the 
arrival of Major Clarke's force at Corn Island, until Kaskaskia was 
captured. He relates that part of Simon Kenton's life history which 
is not usually touched upon either by the historian or the story teller. 
This is one of the most entertaining books for young people which has 
been published. 

Sarah Dillard's Ride. A Story of South Carolina in 

in 1780. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

"This book deals with the Carolinas in 1780, giving a wealth of detail of 
the Mountain Men who struggled so valiantly against the king's troops. 
Major Ferguson is the prominent British officer of the story, which is 
told as though coming from a youth who experienced these adventures. 
In this way the famous ride of Sarah Dillard is brought out as an 
incident of the plot." — Boston Journal. 

A Tory Plot. A Story of the Attempt to Kill General 

Washington. By James Otis. l2mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

" 'A Tory Plot' is the story of two lads who overhear something 
of the plot originated during the Revolution by Gov. Tryon to capture 
or murder Washington. They communicate their knowledge to Gen. 
Putnam and are commissioned by him to play the role of detectives 
in the matter. They do so, and meet with many adventures and hair- 
breadth escapes. The boys are, of course, mythical, but they serve to en- 
able the author to put into very attractive shape much valuable knowledge 
concerning one phase of the Revolution." — Pittsburgh Times. 

A Traitor's Escape. A Story of the Attempt to Seize 

Benedict Arnold. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

"This is a tale with stirring scenes depicted in each chapter, bringing 
clearly before the mind the glorious deeds of the early settlers in this 
country. In an historical work dealing with this country's past, no 
plot can hold the attention closer than this one, which describes the 
attempt and partial success of Benedict Arnold's escape to New York, 
where he remained as the guest of Sir Henry Clinton. All those who 
actually figured in the arrest of the traitor, as Well as Gen. Washing- 
ton, are included as characters." — Albany Union. 

A Cruise with Paul Jones. A Story of Naval Warfare 

in 1776. By James Otis. 12mo, clcth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

"This story takes up that portion of Paul Jones' adventurous life 
when he was hovering off the British coast, watching for an oppor- 
tunity to strike the enemy a blow. It deals more particularly with 
his descent upon Whitehaven, the seizure of Lady Selkirk's plate, and 
the famous battle with the Drake. The boy who figures in the tale 
Is ore who was taken from a derelict by Paul Jones shortly after this 
particular cruise was begun." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price By tha 
Publisher. A, L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street. Mew York. 



6 A. L. BURIES BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

!■ ... . - .1 . — — — a» 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

Corporal Lige's Recruit. A Story of Crown Point and 

Ticonderoga. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1,00. 

"In 'Corporal Lige's Recruit,' Mr. Otis tells the amusing story of an 
old soldier, proud of his record, who had served the king in '58. and who 
takes the lad, Isaac Rice, as his 'personal recruit-' The lad acquits 
himself superbly. Col. Ethan Allen 'in the name of God and the con- 
tinental congress,' infuses much martial spirit into the narrative, which 
will arouse the keenest interest as it proceeds. Crown Point, Tieon- 
deroga, Benedict Arnold and numerous other famous historical names 
appear in this dramatic tale." — Boston Globe. 

Morgan, the Jersey Spy. A Story of the Siege of York- 
town in 1781. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price §1.00. 
"The two lads who are utilized by the author to emphasize the details 
of the work done during that memorable time were real boys who lived 
on the banks of the York river, and who aided the Jersey spy in his 
dangerous occupation. In the guise of fishermen the lads visit York- 
town, are suspected of being spies, and put under arrest. Morgan risks 
his life to save them. The final escape, the thrilling encounter with a 
squad of red coats, when they are exposed equally to the bullets of 
friends and foes, told in a masterly fashion, makes of this volume one 
©f the most entertaining books of the year." — Inter-Ocean. 

The Young Scout: The Story of a West Point Lieu- 
tenant. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 
The crafty Apache chief Geronimo but a few years ago was the 
most terrible scourge of the southwest border. The author has woven, 
in a tale of thrilling interest, all the incidents of Geronimo's last raid. 
The hero is Lieutenant James Decker, a recent graduate of West Point. 
Ambitious to distinguish himself the young man takes many a desperate 
chance against the enemy and on more than one occasion narrowly 
escapes with his life. In our opinion Mr. Ellis is the best writer of 
Indian stories now before the public. 

Adrift in the Wilds: The Adventures of Two Ship- 
wrecked Boys. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price Si. 00. 
Elwood Brandon and Howard Lawrence are en route for San Fran- 
cisco. Off the coast of California the steamer takes fire. The two boys 
reach the shore with several of the passengers. Young Brandon be- 
comes separated from his party and is captured by hostile Indians, 
but is afterwards rescued. This is a very entertaining narrative of 
Southern California. 

A Young Hero; or 5 Fighting to Win. By Edward S. 

Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $51.00. 

This story tells how a valuable solid silver service was stolen from 
the Misses Perkinpine, two very old and simple minded ladies. Fred 
Sheldon, the hero of this story, undertakes to discover the thieves and 
have them arrested. After much time spent in detective work, he 
succeeds in discovering the silver nlate and winning the reward. The 
story is told in Mr. TSllis' most fascinating style. Every boy will be 
glad to read this delightful book. 

Lost in the -Rockies. A Story of Adventure in the 

Rocky Mountains. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. 

Incident succeeds incident, and advent are is piled upon adventure, 
and at the end the reader, be he boy or man, will have experienced 
breathless enjoyment in this romantic «tory describing many adventures in 
the Rockies and among the Indians. 

For sale by all b^nksellTS* Or s^nt pnstnaid on receipt of price by the 
publisher, A. L. BURT. 52-5S Duane Street, New York. 



A. L. BURT^ BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. T 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

A Jaunt Through Java: The Story of a Journey to 

the Sacred Mountain. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, 

price $1.00. 

The interest of this story is found in the thrilling adventures of 
two cousins, Hermon and Eustace Hadley, on their trip acrosss the island 
of Java, from Samarang to the Sacred Mountain. In a land where the 
Royal Bengal tiger, the rhinoceros, and other fierce beasts are to be 
met with, it is but natural that the heroes of this book should have a 
lively experience. There is not a dull page in the book. 

The Boy Patriot. A Story of Jack, the Young Friend 

of Washington. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, illus- 
trated, price $1.50. 

"There are adventures of all kinds for the hero and his friends, whose 
pluck and ingenuity in extricating themselves from awkward fixes are 
always equal to the occasion. It is an excellent story full of honest, 
manly, patriotic efforts on the part of the hero. A very vivid description 
of the battle of Trenton is also found in this story." — Journal of 
Education. 

A Yankee Lad's Pluck. How Bert Larkin Saved his 

Father's Ranch in Porto Rico. By Wm. P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illus- 
trated, price $1.00. 

"Bert Larkin. the hero of the story, early excites our admiration, 
and is altogether a fine character such as boys will delight in, whilst 
the story of his numerous adventures is very graphically told. Thi3 
will, we think, prove one of the most popular boys' books this season." — - 
Gazette. 

A Brave Defense. A Story of the Massacre at Fort 

Griswold in 1781. By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 

$1.00. 

Perhaps no more gallant fight against fearful odds took place during 
the Revolutionary War than that at Fort Griswold, Groton Heights, Conn., 
in 1781. The boys are real boys who were actually on the muster rolls, 
either at Fort Trumbull on the New London side, or of Fort Griswold on 
the Groton side of the Thames. The youthful reader who follows Halsey 
Sanford and Levi Dart and Tom Malleson, and their equally brave com- 
rades, through their thrilling adventures will be learning something more 
than historical facts; they will be imbibing lessons of fidelity, of bravery, 
of heroism, and of manliness, which must prove serviceable in the arena 
of life. 

The Young Minuteman. A Story of the Capture of 

General Prescott in 1777. By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, 

price $1.00. 

This story is based upon actual events which occurred during the British 
occupation of the waters of Narragansett Bay. Darius Wale and William 
Northrop belong to "the coast patrol." The story is a strong one, dealing 
only with actual events. There is, however, no lack of thrilling adventure, 
and every lad who is fortunate enough to obtain the book will find not 
only that his historical knowledge is increased, but that his own patriotism 
and love of country are deepened. 

For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem. 

By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by S. J. Solomon. 12mo, cloth, olivine 
edges, price $1.00. 

"Mr. Henty's graphic prose picture of the hopeless Jewish resistance 
to Roman sway adds another leaf to his record of the famous wars of 
the world. T he book is one of Mr. Henty's cleverest efforts." — Graphic 

For sale by all booksellers, cr sent postpaid on receipt of price by tkd 
publisher, A. L. BUST, 52-53 Duane Street, New York. 



8 A. L. BURT'S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

Boy Gilbert's Search: A Tale of the Great Lakes. By 

Wm. P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

A deep mystery hangs over the parentage of Roy Gilbert. He arranges 
with two schoolmates to make a tour of the Great Lakes on a steam 
launch. The three boys visit many points of interest on the lakes. 
Afterwards the lads rescue an elderly gentleman and a lady from a sink- 
ing yacht. Later on the boys narrowly escape with their lives. The 
hero is a manly, self-reliant boy, whose adventures will he followed 
with interest. 

The Slate Picker: The Story of a Boy's Life in the 

Coal Mines. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

This is a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. 
Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy 
he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the 
position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. This is ft 
bock of extreme interest to every boy reader. 

The Boy Cruisers; or, Paddling in Florida. By St. 

George Rathborne. 12mo, clot'.), illustrated, price $1.00 
Andrew George and Rowland Car<er start on a canoe trip along the 
Gulf coast, from Key West to Tampa, Florida. Their first adventure 
Is with a pair of rascals w^o steal their boats. Next they ran into 
a gale in the Gulf. Af«.er that they have a lively time with alli- 
gators and Andrew gets J-nto trouble with a band of Seminole Indiana. 
Mr. Rathborne knowt jusst liow to interest the boys, and h»ds who are 
In search of a rare treat will do well to read this entertaining story. 

Captured by Zulus: A Story of Trapping in Africa. 

By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

This story details the adventures of two lads, Dick Elsworth and Bob 
Harwy, in the wOds of South Africa. By stratagem the Zulus capture 
Dick and Bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. The 
lads escape death by dig ing their way out of the prison hut by night. 
They are pursued, but the Zulus finally give up pursuit. Mr. Prentice 
tells exactly how wild-beast collectors secure specimens on the^r native 
stamping grounds, and these descriptions make very entertaining reading. 

Tom the Keady; or, Up from the Lowest. By Kan- 

dolph Hill. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1 00. 

This is a dramatic narrative of the unaided rise of a fearless, ambi- 
tious boy from the lowest round of fortune's ladder to wealth and the 
governorship of his native State. Tom Seacomb begins life with a pur- 
pose, and eventually overcomes those who oppose him. How he manages 
to win the battle is told by Mr. Hill in a masterfr 1 way that thrills 
the reader and holds his attention and sympathy to tae end. 

Captain Kidd's Gold: The True Story of an Adven- 
turous Sailor Boy. By James Franklin Fitts. 12mo, cloth, illustrated 
price $1.00. 

There is something fascinating to the average youth in the very idea 
of buried treasure. A vision arises before his eyes of swarthy Portu- 
guese and Spanish rascals, with black beards and gleaming eyes. There 
were many famous sea rovers, but none more celebrated than Capt. Kidd„ 
Paul Jones Garry inherits a document which locates a considerable 
treasure burled by two of Kidd's crew. The hero of this book is an 
ambitious, persevering lad, of salt-water New England ancestrv, and his 
efforts to reach the island and secure the money form one of the most 
absorbing tales for out youth that has come from the press. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by tfct 
publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street. Hew York. 



A. L. BURT'S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 9 

* 1IHI W I-l II I I - I I ■■■«■■!■■ !!■!■■ I H 

BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

The Boy Explorers: The Adventures of Two Boys in 

Alaska. By Harry Prentice. l2mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

Two boys, Raymond and Spencer Manning, travrl to Alaska to join 
their father in search of their uncle. On their arrival at Sitka the boys 
with an Indian guide set off across the mountains. The trip is fraught 
with perils that test the lad8' couraro to the utmost. All through their 
exciting adventures the lads demonstrate what can be accomplished by 
pluck and resolution, and their experience m3kes one of the most in- 
teresting tales ever written. 

The Island Treasure; or, Harry Barrel's Fortune. 

By Frank H. Converse. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

Harry Darrel, having received a nautical training on a school-ship, is 
bent on going to sea. A runaway horse changes his prospects. Harry 
saves Dr. Gregg from drowning and afterward becomes sailing-master 
of a sloop yacht. Mr. Converse's stories possess a charm of their own 
which is appreciated by lads who delight in good healthy tales that 
smack of salt water. 

Guy Harris; The Eunaway. By Haery Castlemon". 

12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

Guy Harris lived in a small city on the shore of one of the Great 
Lakes. He is persuaded to go to sea, and gets a glimpse of the rough 
side of life in a sailor's boarding house. He ships on a vessel and fo? 
five months leads a hard life. The book will interest boys generally 
on account of its graphic style. This is one of Castlemon's most attract* 
Ive stories. 

Julian Mortimer: A Brave Boy's Struggle for Home 

and Fortune. By Harry Castlemon. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. 

The scene of the story lies west of the Mississippi River, in the days 
when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the 
land of gold. There is an attack upon the wagon train by a large party 
of Indians. Our hero is a 'ad of uncommon nerve and pluck. Befriended 
by a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves the most 
taMpy results. 

By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch 

Republic. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Maynard Brown. 

12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"Boys with a turn for historical research will 'be enchanted with the 
"book, while the rest who only care for adventure will be students in spite 
of themselves." — St. James's Gazette. 

St. George for England: A Tale of Cressy and Poi- 
tiers. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, 
cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"A story of very great interest for b*>ys. In his own forcible style 
the author has endeavored to show that determination and enthusiasm 
can accomplish marvellous r«s»\fe; and that courage is generally accom- 
panied by magnSnimity and g^utleness. " — Pall Mall Gazette. 

Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of 

California. By G. A. Hf-nty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. lSmo? 

cloth, olivine edges, price $i.00. 

"Mr. Henty is careful to mingle Instruction with entertainment; and 
the humorous touches, especially in the sketch of John Holl, the West- 
minster dustman, Dickens himself could hardly have excelled." — Chris- 
tian. Xe9ad*r» 

Far *al*s fay nil bjajfcrie'UeriL or sent postpaid on fcc&tpt of otic* bj- tea 
uubfi»U*t. As L, WokT. ttWJl Otwii* Street, tfew York, 



10 A. L. BURT'S BOOKS FOB YOUNG PEOPLE. 

BOOKS FOR BOYS* ' ~~~ 

Bndd Boyd's Triumph ; or, The Boy Firm of Fox Island. 

By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. 

The scene of this story is laid on the upper part of Narragansett Bay, 
and the leading incidents have a strong salt-water flavor. The two 
boys, Budd Boyd and Judd Floyd, being ambitious and clear sighted, 
form a partnership to catch and sell fish. Budd's pluck and good sense 
carry him through many troubles. In following the career of the boy 
firm of Boyd & Floyd, the youthful reader will find a useful lesson — 
that industry and perseverance are bound to lead to ultimate success. 

Lost in the Canyon : Sam Willett's Adventures on the 

Great Colorado. By Alfred R, Calhoun. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1, 
This story hinges on a fortune left to Sam Willett, the hero, and the 
fact that it will pass to a disreputable relative if the lad dies before 
he shall have reached his majority. The story of his father's peril and 
of Sam's desperate trip down the great canyon on a raft, and how the 
party finally escape from their perils is described in a graphic style 
that stamps Mr. Calhoun as a master of his art. 

Captnred hy Apes : The Wonderful Adventures of a 

Young Animal Trainer. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated. 

price $1.00. 

Philip Garland, a young animal collector and trainer, sets sail for 
Eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. The vessel 
is wrecked off the coast of Borneo, and young Garland is cast ashore 
on a small island, and cantured by the apes that overrun the place. 
Very novel indeed is the way by which the young man escapes death. 
Mr. Prentice is a writer of undoubted skill. 

Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main. 

By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, 

olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"There is not a dull chapter, nor, indeed, a dull page in the book; but 
the author has so carefully worked up his subject that the exciting 
deeds of his heroes are never incongruous nor absurd." — Observer. 

By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War. By 

G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 13mo, cloth, olivine 

edges, price $1.00. 

The author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the details 
of the Ashanti campaign, of which he was himself a witness. 

"Mr. Henty keeps up his reputation as a writer of boys' stories. 'By 
Sheer Pluck' will be eagerly read." — Atheneum. 

With Lee in Virginia : A Story of the American Civil 

War. Bv G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, 

elorn, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"One of the best stories for lads which Mr. Henty has yet written. 
The picture is full of life and color, and the stirring and romantic inci- 
dents are skillfully blended with the personal interest and charm of the 
story." — Standard. 

By England's Aid; or, The Freeing of the Netherlands 

(1585-1604). By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Alfred Peaese. 12mo t 

cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"It is an admirable book for youngsters. It overflows with stirring 
incident and exciting adventure, and the color of the era and of the 
scene are finely reproduced. The illustrations add to its attractiveness."— 
Boston Gazette. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by tbe 
publisher. A, L. BUST, 62-58 Duana Staeei, E&v Yoak. 



A, U BURrS BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 11 



By Eight of Conquest; or, With Cortez in Mexico. 

By G. A. Henty. With iilustrationa by W. S. Stacey. 12mo, cloth, 

olivine edgey, price $1.50. 
"The conqnost of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under the 
magnificent leadership oi ! Cortez is always xightfully ranked among the most 
romantic and daring exploits in history. 'By Ri^ht of Conquest* is the 
heaiest approach to a peri'ecjtiy successful historical tale that Mr. Henty 
(has yet pubushed." — Academy. 

For Kfame and Fame; or, Through Afghan Passes. 

By 6. A Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, 

olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"Not only a rousing story, replete with all the varied forms of excite- 
ment of a campaign, but, what is still more useful, an account of a 
territory and its inhabitants wh.eh must for a long time possess a supreme 
Interest for Englishmen, as being the key to our Lnuian Kmpire."— =) 
Glasgow Herald. 

$he Bravest of the Brave; or, With Peterborough in 

Spain- By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. 12mc 

cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"Mr. Henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his Work — to 
enforce the doctrine of courage and truth, mercy and loving ki idness, 
as indispensable to the making of a gentleman. Boys will rea. 'The 
Bravest of the Brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite 
sure, ' ' — Dai ly Telegraph. 

The Cat of Bubastes : A Story of Ancient Egypt. By 

G. A. Henty With illustrations. 12mo, cloth,, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"The stoty, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat 
to the peril, ms exodus into Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully 
constructed and full of exciting adventures. It ia admirably illustrated." 
■ — Saturday Review. 

Bonnie Prince Charlie : A Tale of Fontenoy and Cul- 

loden. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Bro- tt ne. 12mo, 

cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"Ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'Quentin Durward.' Tha 
lad's journev across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, maleo up a8. 
good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. For fre. hness of 
treatment and variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."— 
Spectator. 

With Clive in India ; or, The Beginnings of an Empire. 

By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12qio, cloth, 

olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital Impor- 
tance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of 
Itself is deeply interesting. Young people assuredly will be delighted 
with the volume." — Scotsman. 

In the Eeign of Terror: The Adventures of a West- 
minster Boy. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by J. Schonberg 
12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 
"Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat 

Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity 

and peril they depict. The story is one of Mr. Henty's best." — Saturday 

Review. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid op receipt oil pxie« fey tbf 
ftutaUabo* A. L. SUES^AMft Auuut Stmafeo.tfeiv TBuk, 



12 A. L. burt's books for young people. 
BOOKS FOR BOYS. "~ 

The Lion of the Korth: A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus 

and the Wars of Religion, By G. A. Eenty. With illustrations by Johsi 

Schokberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"A praiseworthy attempt to interest British youth in the great deeds 
of the Scotch Brigade in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. Mackey, Hep- 
burn, aDd Munro live again in Mr. Hent.y's pages, as those deserve to 
live whose disciplined bands formed really the germ of the modern 
British army." — Athenasum. 

The Dragon and the Haven; or, The Days of King 

Alfred. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Stanhand. 12mo, 

cloth, olivine edges, price $1. 00. 

In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle be*> 
tween Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivM 
picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the 
ravages of the sea-wolves. The story is treated in a manner most at^ 
tractive to the boyish reader." — Athenssum. 

The Young Carthaginian: A Story of the Times of 

Hannibal. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mc, 
cloth, olivine edges, price §1.00. 

"Well constructed and vividly told. From first to last nothing stays 
the interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a stream whose 
current varies in direction, but never loses its force." — Saturday Review. 

In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce, 

By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, 
olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"It is written in the author's best style. Full of the wildest and most 
remarkable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy. once 
he has begun it, will not willingly put one side." — The Schoolmaster. 

With Wolfe in Canada; or, The Winning of a Con- 
tinent. By G. A, Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browns. 12mo, 
cloth, olivine edges, price §1.00. 

"A model of what a boys' story-book should be. Mr. Henty has a 
great power of infusing into the dead facts of history new life, and as 
no pains are spared by him to ensure accuracy in historic details, hia 
books supply useful aids to study as well as amusement." — School Guard- 
ian. 

True to the Old Flag : A Tale of the American War of 

Independence. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browns, 
12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. 

"Does justice to the pluck and determination of the British solidera 
luring the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son 
of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the 
hostile red-skin? in that very Huron country which has been endeared 
to us by the exploits of Hawkey e and Chingachgook." — The Times. 

A Final Beckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Aus- 
tralia. By G. A Henty. With illustrations by W. B. Wollen. 12ino; 
cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00 

"All boys will read this story with eager and unflagging interest. Tbi 
episodes are in Mr. Henty 's very best vein — graphic, exciting, realistic; 
and, as in all Sir. Henty's books, the tendency is to the formation of an 
honorable, manly, and even heroic character." — Birmingham Post. 

Rpr sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by th& 



sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt 
wr, A. £,. mm-t, 62-63 Bu*n% Street, Hew York, 



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